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US Strikes Another Boat in East Pacific02/06 06:04
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. military said Thursday that it has carried out
another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern
Pacific Ocean.
U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat "was transiting
along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in
narco-trafficking operations." It said the strike killed two people. A video
linked to the post shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in
flames.
The strike was announced just hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth declared that "some top cartel drug-traffickers" in the region "have
decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly
effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean." However, Hegseth did not provide
any details or information to back up this claim, made in a post on his
personal account on social media.
Neither U.S. Southern Command nor the Pentagon would answer follow-up
questions about Hegseth's claim.
The boat attacks, which began in September 2025, have slowed in frequency
since January -- a month that only saw one strike after the raid that captured
Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro. By contrast, the Pentagon struck more than
dozen boats in December 2025.
Thursday's attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration's
strikes on alleged drug boats to 128 people. Last week, the military said that
figure was up to 126 people, with the inclusion of those presumed dead after
being lost at sea. That figure included 116 people who were killed immediately
in at least 36 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea
and eastern Pacific Ocean, U.S. Southern Command said. Ten others are believed
dead because searchers did not locate them following a strike.
Meanwhile, the families of two Trinidadian nationals killed in a Trump
administration boat strike in Octobersued the federal government last week,
calling the attack a war crime and part of an "unprecedented and manifestly
unlawful U.S. military campaign." The suit is believed to be the first wrongful
death case arising from the campaign and will test the legal justification of
the attacks, which many experts say are a brazen violation of the laws of armed
conflict.
President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in "armed conflict" with cartels
in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to
stem the flow of drugs. But his administration has offered little evidence to
support its claims of killing "narcoterrorists."
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