The Pentagon said it blew up a boat in the Caribbean Sea on Wednesday, killing four people. The strike raised the death toll in the Trump administration’s campaign against people it accuses of smuggling drugs at sea to at least 163 people.
The U.S. military’s Southern Command announced the strike on social media with a 15-second video clip that showed a stationary boat floating in the water and then suddenly exploding.
Legal specialists on the use of lethal force have said the strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings because the military cannot deliberately target civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence, even if they are suspected of engaging in criminal acts. The Trump administration has not provided evidence of drug smuggling.
Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean from its headquarters near Miami, cited unspecified intelligence in its announcement. It said the boat had been traveling on “known narco-trafficking routes” and was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
The attack, the 47th since the U.S. campaign against boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific started in early September, continued a recent increase in the pace of strikes.
Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the head of Southern Command, acknowledged last week that the U.S. strikes “aren’t the answer” to the nation’s drug problem.
In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Donovan said the strikes had forced narco-terrorist groups in the region to change their operational patterns but were not a long-term solution.
Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades.
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