Deadly US Boat Strike Leaves Two Dead in Eastern Pacific

By Staff, Agencies

The US military conducted a strike against another alleged drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Friday, killing two people, according to US Southern Command.

The attack marks the first known strike against alleged drug-trafficking boats since US forces abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on January 3.

At least 117 people have reportedly been killed in strikes on suspected drug boats as part of a US campaign launched in September and dubbed Operation Southern Spear.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused Washington of carrying out extrajudicial killings and warned that the strikes undermine international law and threaten regional stability.

US Southern Command said that “on Jan. 23, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth,” Joint Task Force Southern Spear carried out a “lethal kinetic strike” on a vessel “engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” leaving one survivor, as grainy black-and-white aerial footage showed the boat erupting into flames.

With the latest attack, there have been 36 known strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in South American waters since early September, according to multiple media reports and White House announcements. The majority have occurred in the Caribbean Sea.

The latest attack raised the total to 36 known US strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats since early September, mostly in the Caribbean, following late-December attacks that killed eight people.

Trump’s administration has offered no public evidence that the targeted boats carried drugs or were linked to cartels, as several Latin American and European states questioned the legality of the strikes in international waters, with China and Iran condemning the campaign as unilateral and destabilizing.