US strike on alleged drug boat kills three in eastern Pacific | US military

The US military said on Saturday it attacked a ship in the eastern Pacific, killing three people and making it the second attack in as many days.

US Southern Command officials in question A post published on

“Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action,” the post said. “No US military forces were harmed.”

On Friday, the US military said it had carried out another attack on a boat accused of drug smuggling in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Three people were also killed in this attack, bringing the death toll in such attacks by the US in the last few months to more than 200 people.

Friday and Saturday’s strikes were among four strikes from the previous week.

The Trump administration has declared that the United States is in armed conflict with Latin American drug cartels, accusing them of inundating the nation’s communities with drugs. But the White House’s failure to provide conclusive evidence that the ships were involved in drug smuggling has sparked debate about the legality of attacks such as those carried out on Friday and Saturday.

Experts and human rights advocates disputed the legality of the strikes, while Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the operations amounted to “illegal extrajudicial killings”.