The grainy videos released by the Pentagon are just seconds long. Some show boats racing along the water, before they disappear in a ball of fire. In others, hazy figures can be seen moving around on deck before the vessel explodes.
Since early September, the U.S. military has killed at least 83 people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. After each attack, the Pentagon has released a video clip showing the operation’s final moments, at times from multiple perspectives.
The Trump administration says those aboard were smuggling drugs to the United States, but it has offered little evidence to support that claim. Nor has it disclosed the weapons used or information about the people who were killed.
The Times closely examined video of all 21 strikes and consulted military aviators and weapons experts, finding that the U.S. military used a variety of munitions delivered through an operation that relied on both drones and manned aircraft in a departure from traditional stop-and-board operations.
The clips show some of the boats were already stopped at sea when they were detected, and the people onboard were potentially within reach of U.S. forces before they were blown up.
Lawmakers from both parties and legal experts have questioned the legality of the strikes and requested the White House’s legal justification.
Laser-Guided Missiles and Bombs
In some attacks, a missile approaches the boat from the rear, as this video of a Nov. 9 strike shows. Two people are standing along the vessel’s port side. A frame-by-frame analysis shows a missile hitting the vessel.
Fins near the missile’s nose suggest it is an AGM-176 Griffin, a small guided missile designed for covert airstrikes.
The White House said in a statement on Nov. 1 that the operations were being conducted “largely by unmanned aerial vehicles launched from naval vessels in international waters.” But a closer look shows that manned aircraft and large drones that can be launched only from airstrips on land have also been used in the attacks.
In the video of the Nov. 9 strike, the missile is guided by a laser beamed from an AC-130J gunship, a manned airplane identifiable by the shape of the target cross hair in the video. A small blurred box covers the center of the vessel, a redaction to hide data on the laser.
Other weapons used in the attacks are moving much faster, complicating the task of identifying them, as the U.S. military’s airborne cameras typically capture video at 30 frames per second.
In the video of a strike on Sept. 19, two munitions appear as black streaks just before explosions engulf the vessel.
Hitting a moving target like a speeding boat would require the use of laser-guided munitions. After they detonate, a color version of the same video shows plumes of flame and smoke billowing from burning fuel stored inside the boat.
While the lack of detail in the image makes it difficult to discern the exact munition used, the size and shape suggest the use of larger missiles like the AGM-114 Hellfire, as well as 250-pound guided glide bombs.
Those weapons can be launched from gunships and MQ-9 Reaper drones deployed from air bases on land. Some of them can also be fired from helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft launched from Navy warships and cargo vessels that are operating in the Caribbean Sea.
People Visible Before They Are Killed
All but two of the clips have redactions that cover up information such as data or other images that could reveal sensitive attack systems.
But they pointedly leave images that show people on the boats just before they are killed. This is a departure from past practice of showing buildings or vehicles being blown up but avoiding showing such a graphic loss of life.
The Pentagon said it limits its redactions to “operational security reasons.”
Some of the video clips are from infrared imagery, which makes their body heat stand out brightly against the cold background of the ocean.
Pentagon officials said that the first strike in the campaign — on Sept. 2 near Trinidad — killed 11 people. At least eight of them are visible on the open boat.
Intercepting Boats at Sea
Most of the videos show boats moving quickly through the water when they are bombed from the sky.
Until the latest campaign, U.S. forces on Navy warships or Coast Guard cutters would intercept the vessels at sea, a practice that the Coast Guard says is continuing.
On those occasions, U.S. forces then inspect the suspicious boats and, if they find drugs or other contraband, seize it. They have also arrested and charged smugglers. In extreme cases when boats don’t stop, Coast Guardsmen can sometimes fire rifles or machine guns at the engines to disable them, but they are not allowed to kill those inside.
In some of the videos, it is difficult to see details of what is inside the boats.
The videos show the bombing of six boats that appear not to be moving. Motors on three of the vessels are out of the water, possibly indicating mechanical failure.
In an attack on Sept. 15, a man perched on the side of the boat with another person near him disappear in a ball of fire. President Gustavo Petro of Colombia said that the strike killed an innocent fisherman, and that the boat was disabled and in need of assistance.
The Pentagon’s video of its Nov. 4 bombing in the Pacific shows a four-engine boat idling in the water, bobbing in the waves. Two men were killed in the attack, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a social media post, without explaining why the vessel was not intercepted.
Little Evidence Presented
For years, the Coast Guard has publicized big hauls of narcotics at sea by displaying them on the deck of a cutter or on a pier. But that is not what is happening here.
The military has declined to offer evidence for each attack, instead citing unspecified intelligence that the Pentagon has not made public.
After one attack in September, the Dominican Republic displayed cocaine that it said was recovered.
The U.S. military hit a boat on Oct. 22, then went back for a second strike to destroy packages floating in the ocean.
Drug cartels use an array of vessels, including semi-submersibles, to transport drugs around the world. President Trump claimed on Oct. 18 that a strike hit a “very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE” loaded with fentanyl and other narcotics and headed for the United States directly.
Neither the White House or the Pentagon officials have said how they knew what the vessel was carrying.
One of the four boats the United States bombed in the Pacific on Oct. 27 appears to have bundles of something scattered on the deck. But the load could not be evaluated because it burned up with the boat.
Amogh Vaz contributed video production. C. J. Chivers contributed reporting.
John Ismay is a reporter covering the Pentagon for The Times. He served as an explosive ordnance disposal officer in the U.S. Navy.
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