Nov. 5 (UPI) — The U.S. military has killed two people in a strike on a boat involved in alleged drug smuggling in the Eastern Pacific, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said, making it the 16th attack by the Pentagon targeting such vessels.
In a post on X, Hegseth said the Department of Defense conducted a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization.”
Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has, via executive order, listed eight drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.
In announcing the strike Tuesday, Hegseth did not specify which organization the boat was being operated by, but said “intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting a known narco-trafficking route and carrying narcotics.”
Hegseth provided no evidence, but a video accompanied the post showing a boat lolling on the water and erupting in flames after being struck by an apparent munition.
“No U.S. forces were harmed in the strike, and two male narco-terrorists — who were aboard the vessel — were killed,” Hegseth said, stating the strike was at Trump’s direction.
The U.S. military has conducted at least 16 known strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since Sept. 2, killing more than 65 people. Prior to Sept. 2, the U.S. military had never used lethal force to combat drug trafficking.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has accused Trump of murder, saying one of the U.S. leader’s strikes killed a fisherman named Alejandro Carranza.
The Trump administration has defended the strikes as necessary to protect Americans from drugs, asserting that they comply with laws pertaining to “armed conflict.”
Trump also said two weeks ago that he doesn’t think he is going to ask Congress to approve his attacks on the boats with a declaration of war.
“I think we are just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, okay. We’re going to kill them, you know. They’re going to be, like, dead,” the president said.
Trump’s attacks have drawn staunch criticism from Democrats as well as civil and human rights organizations, some accusing his administration of perpetrating war crimes and carrying out extrajudicial killings.
On Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volk Turk said the strikes violate international human rights law.
Drug trafficking across international borders is a law enforcement matter, and the use of lethal force is only permissible as a last resort against those who pose an imminent threat to one’s life, he said.
“None of the individuals on the targeted boats appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others or otherwise justified the use of lethal armed force against them under international law,” Turk said in a statement.
