In the latest attack on boats in the international waters, the US military has killed five sailors in two boats after declaring them narco-terrorists. As with the previous strikes, it did not provide any evidence of drug trafficking or identify those it killed.
In the latest attack in the international waters, the US military on Thursday blew up two boats and killed five sailors in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, the Southern Command said in a statement.
The US military killed three sailors in the first and two sailors in the second vessel after declaring them as narco-terrorists belonging to a designated terrorist organisation, as per the statement.
As with the previous strikes, the Department of Defense did not provide any evidence of drug trafficking or identify the sailors killed or name the purported terrorist organisation they belonged to.
Starting on September 2, the US military has been waging a campaign to blow up boats and kill sailors in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific in the name of tackling drug trafficking. In 27 strikes so far, the US military has killed at least 104 sailors without identifying them or providing any evidence of drug trafficking.
On Dec. 18, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted lethal kinetic strikes on two vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters. Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/CcCyOgYRto
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) December 19, 2025
While President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and their supporters have hailed the campaign as a rightful offensive against drug traffickers, critics have dubbed these attacks as illegal and potential war crimes. They have said that the US military has been blowing up boats without providing due process to those accused of drug trafficking.
In the most contentious act, the US military on Sept. 2 conducted a second strike to kill two shipwrecked survivors of the first strike who were clinging to the broken vessel without any weapon or communication device. Critics said their killing was in violation of both international law and the American war manual.
The US military killed these two survivors even as they did not have any weapon to fight, radio to call for aid, or means to escape.
Critics have said that such killings are also against the longstanding US policy of apprehending suspected drug traffickers and trying them in US courts. They have said that treating them as enemy combatants in a war and killing them is a violation of American policy — and not just international law.
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