US has struck another alleged drug-smuggling boat, US Southern Command says | US military
US Southern Command announced On Friday, US forces carried out another “deadly kinetic attack” on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific; One person survived and two died in this attack.
Following the attack, the military said “the US Coast Guard was immediately notified to activate the Search and Rescue system” for the three survivors of the attack. One of the ships found two bodies and one survivor and handed them over to the Costa Rican coast guard, the coast guard said in a statement.
The attacks on suspected drug traffickers have been described as illegal by international law experts, but the Pentagon appears to have changed its strategy since the first attack in September, when it ordered a follow-up strike to kill any survivors. Killing survivors has been considered a textbook example of war crimes since 1945, when the Allies emerged victorious in World War II. Nazi submarine crew sued for killing the shipwreck survivors.
The latest attack brings to at least 159 the number of people killed in U.S. military boat attacks since the Trump administration began targeting what it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.
As with most of the military’s accounts of more than 40 known attacks in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command said it was targeting alleged drug smugglers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the ship was carrying drugs. A video was posted on social media showing a ship engulfed in flames while sailing through the water.
Donald Trump said the US was in a “gunfight” with cartels in Latin America as the military was instructed to continue its campaign against alleged drug traffickers. Trump justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States, but his administration has offered little evidence to support killing those he claims are “narco terrorists.”
Critics have questioned the overall legality and effectiveness of boat attacks; That’s because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically smuggled into the United States overland from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.
Associated Press contributed reporting
