WASHINGTON — The U.S. military said it has carried out another strike on a boat it accuses of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing three men in the fourth such attack in a week. The death toll in the U.S. campaign is now 205.
U.S. Southern Command announced the Saturday strike with its usual language claiming that the vessel was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations” and operated by a designated terrorist organization. It provided no evidence for the allegations.
It’s the latest in a months-long campaign against purported drug boats traversing the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific that began in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Venezuela and capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro. Many countries and legal experts say the attacks are extrajudicial killings in violation of international law.
Video released by the military on social media shows a small vessel floating in the ocean before it’s hit and engulfed in a fireball.
The attack brings the death toll to 205 in the U.S. campaign that began in early September, with other attacks announced Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. The Trump administration has declared that the U.S. is in armed conflict with Latin American drug cartels, saying they are behind the flow of drugs into American communities.
U.S. Southern Command said in its post on X that the strike came at the direction of Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the top U.S. commander in Latin America.
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