Three attacks in the Pacific and the Caribbean against boats allegedly carrying drug traffickers left eleven people dead, the U.S. armed forces said on Tuesday. The attacks took place on Monday and resulted in “four dead on the first vessel in the eastern Pacific, four on the second vessel in the eastern Pacific, and three on the third vessel in the Caribbean,” U.S. Southern Command reported in a post.
The United States began its campaign against these suspected drug-running boats in September and has since killed at least 140 people in nearly 40 attacks. The post includes videos of the strikes on the three vessels, two of which were stationary when they were bombed, while a third was traveling at high speed.
In the videos, people can be seen moving inside two of the boats before the attacks. Donald Trump’s government insists it is at war with alleged “narco-terrorists” operating in Latin America, but it has not provided conclusive evidence that the vessels it targets are involved in drug trafficking, sparking a heated debate over the legality of the operations.
International law experts and human rights groups say the strikes likely amount to extrajudicial executions, since they apparently targeted civilians who posed no immediate threat to the United States. The government has drawn parallels to decades of operations against alleged jihadists in countries such as Yemen, Somalia, or Syria, where targets were also hit despite not presenting an imminent threat.
Washington deployed a massive naval force in the Caribbean that, in addition to disrupting these alleged maritime smuggling routes, also helped enforce an oil blockade against Venezuela and capture its leftist president, Nicolás Maduro, who is currently being held in the United States.
The centerpiece of the flotilla, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, was sent last week to the Middle East along with several accompanying destroyers as part of the threat of military intervention against Iran.
