US launches fifth strike on alleged Pacific drug boat in a week, killing three | US military
According to military officials, three people died in a US attack on another boat allegedly involved in drug smuggling; This was the fifth deadly attack in as many days.
The US southern command said in an
“3 male narco-terrorists were killed in this action.”
The total death toll in the latest attack has risen to at least 177, according to a count compiled by the AFP news agency.
The U.S. military on Monday said it blew up two boats it accused of drug smuggling in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing a total of five people and leaving one survivor. Later on Tuesday, the military announced that four more people were killed in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
President Donald Trump’s administration insists it is effectively at war with what it calls “narco-terrorists” operating in Latin America. However, its failure to provide conclusive evidence that the ships it targeted were involved in drug smuggling has led to heated debates about the legality of the operations.
International law experts and human rights groups say the attacks likely amounted to extrajudicial killings, given that they targeted civilians who did not pose an immediate threat to the United States.
In January, lawyers filed a federal lawsuit against the United States on behalf of the families of two men from a Trinidadian fishing village killed in an attack on a small boat in the Caribbean in October, saying the “premeditated and willful murders lack any reasonable legal justification.”
“The administration continues to push false, fear-mongering claims about who these individuals were, despite research showing that some of those killed were fishermen simply trying to make ends meet for their families,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a December statement.
Last month, Democratic representatives Joaquin Castro and Sara Jacobs wrote to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights raising alarm about the killings, noting that the names and nationalities of most victims were unknown.
Boat attacks in Latin America continued despite the US military focusing on operations in the Middle East, where it has been at war with Iran for several weeks.
With Agence France-Presse
