US kills 3 people in raid on alleged drug boat in the Pacific

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military attacked an accused drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Thursday, killing three people, as the Trump administration wages a months-long campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America.

This latest attack brings to at least 211 the number of people killed in boat attacks by the US military since the Trump administration began targeting what it calls “narco-terrorists” in early September.

As with most military statements about strikes in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, US Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The army did not provide any evidence that the ship was transporting drugs. A video posted on X showed a boat speeding through the water before it collided and burst into flames.

President Donald Trump has said the United States is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stop the flow of drugs into the United States and the deadly overdoses that are claiming American lives. But his administration has provided little evidence to support its claims of killing “narco-terrorists.”

Critics have questioned the overall legality of boat attacks as well as their effectiveness, in part because fentanyl, responsible for many fatal overdoses, is typically smuggled into the United States via land from Mexico, where it is produced using chemicals imported from China and India.

On Thursday, senators demanded that the Pentagon release “unedited video” of the strikes. It has come under intense scrutiny from some Democratic lawmakers and military legal scholars. The US military’s first strike in early September raised particular concerns among some lawmakers and those who study military law.

Two men on the boat initially survived the attack, which killed nine others, and were clinging to the wreckage when the ship struck again, killing them. The White House confirmed the subsequent raid, insisting it was carried out in “self-defense” to ensure the boat was destroyed and in accordance with the laws of armed conflict.

But some legal scholars said that a second strike that killed survivors was illegal under any circumstances, whether it was an armed conflict or not.

The Pentagon watchdog said in May that it planned to look into whether the US military followed a specified targeting framework when carrying out the strikes. However, the inspector general’s office said the assessment focused specifically on what is known as the six-stage joint targeting cycle and not on the legality of the strikes.