The US military carried out another strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific on Friday, killing two people and leaving one survivor adrift. The attack marks the latest in a widening campaign against boats suspected of transporting narcotics across Caribbean and Pacific waters.
Video footage released by the US Southern Command captured the moment the strike hit. The vessel appeared to be moving through open water before being struck by what looked like a missile, with the screen going black momentarily before showing the boat engulfed in flames.
Military officials said the vessel was traveling along established drug-trafficking routes and engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Two men were killed in the strike. The Coast Guard was notified to begin search and rescue operations for the surviving occupant. No additional details about the vessel, its crew, or the circumstances were provided by Southern Command.
This strike follows one from Tuesday that killed three people. According to an independent tally, the military has now carried out 58 strikes on suspected drug boats since September, resulting in at least 193 deaths and just four survivors pulled from the water.
The escalating campaign has drawn sharp criticism from legal experts and human rights organizations. Scholars specializing in military law have characterized the strikes as unlawful extrajudicial killings conducted without proper accountability mechanisms. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both condemned the operations as violating international legal standards.
Pentagon officials frame the campaign as a counterterrorism effort against what they call "narco-terrorism," but they have disclosed little substantive evidence of organized smuggling networks or active threats. The lack of transparency has fueled concerns that the military is operating with minimal oversight in remote ocean areas where verification of targets and intentions is difficult.
Author James Rodriguez: "These numbers are staggering, and the legal questions won't go away just because the Pentagon keeps calling it counterterrorism."
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