US military kills six in strike on alleged drug boat in the Eastern Pacific
Al Jazeera
The US military claims six men killed in a strike on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
The United States military says it has killed six men in a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific Ocean as part of a campaign against traffickers.
The attack on Sunday brought the death toll to at least 157 people since early September when President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in small vessels.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” General Francis Donovan, commander of US Southern Command, posted on X with a video showing a small boat being blown up as it floated on the water.
As with most of the military’s statements on the more than 40 known strikes in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, US Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs.
Trump has said the US is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists”.
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