Two people were killed in recent U.S. military attacks on boats believed to be involved in drug smuggling in the Eastern Pacific, U.S. Southern Command said Monday.
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The attack was led by Gen. Fansis Donovan, and Southern Command said it destroyed a vessel operated by a U.S.-designated terrorist group involved in bringing illegal drugs into the United States. A more precise location of the attack was not provided.
The command said in a statement that the deceased was only characterized as a male “narco-terrorist.”
A black-and-white video from the perspective of an overhead aircraft, posted on X along with a statement from the Southern Command, shows what appears to be a panga or small fishing boat being struck by unknown munitions from above, then emitting smoke.
The attack is part of an ongoing enforcement operation called Joint Task Force Southern Spear against suspected drug traffickers in the eastern Pacific, off the coasts of Central and South America, and the Caribbean, Southern Command said.
“This is creating full-scale systemic friction against the cartels,” he said, adding that there were no casualties to the U.S. military.
President Donald Trump’s administration conducted 50 such strikes during his second term, according to a tally by NBC News. They attacked 51 ships and killed 170 people, often described by military officials as militants or narco-terrorists.
The Trump administration has designated major drug cartels as terrorist groups, saying they are sometimes embedded in Latin American governments. The group claims the group’s role in supplying the United States with fentanyl and other potentially deadly drugs constitutes a hostile act of war.
The characterization of those killed in the attack as drug smugglers has sometimes been disputed by the families of the dead. Some Democrats in Congress have questioned the legality of the operation’s deadly attacks in the absence of due process or public documentation of alleged links to human trafficking.
