US military strikes another boat in Pacific Ocean, killing 6 as Trump’s tirade against ‘drug dealers’ continue – Firstpost

The US Department of Defence said on Sunday that it had blown up a boat in the eastern
Pacific Ocean earlier in the day, killing six on board. The latest strikes raised the death toll in the ongoing campaign by the United States against people it accuses of smuggling drugs at sea to at least 156.

On Sunday, the
US Southern Command released a statement announcing the strikes on social media, sharing an 11-second video clip showing a stationary boat with two or three outboard engines floating in the water that exploded.

On March 8, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/hIXMDeDKK5

— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) March 9, 2026

It is pertinent to note that legal specialists on the use of lethal force have said that these strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings because the military cannot deliberately target civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence, even if suspected of engaging in criminal acts. Apart from this, the Trump administration has not provided evidence of drug smuggling in any of the cases.

45th attack since the start of the campaign

In the Sunday post, the Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean from headquarters near Miami, cited unspecified intelligence as the reason behind the strike. It said that the boat had been travelling on “known narco-trafficking routes” and was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

The attack was the 45th since the US campaign against the boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific started in early September, continuing a recent increase in the pace of strikes. It is also important to note that the six people killed on Sunday marked one of the deadliest boat strikes that the military has carried out in recent weeks.

The US military has carried out strikes every three or four days since the new leader of the Southern Command, Gen. Francis L. Donovan of the Marine Corps, took over in January. In the past, US President Donald Trump has said that the US is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

In his meeting with the Latin American leaders on Saturday, Trump encouraged them to join the US in taking military action against drug-trafficking cartels and transnational gangs, which he said pose an “unacceptable threat” to the region’s national security. In light of this, Ecuador and the United States conducted military operations this past week against organised crime groups in the South American country.