In the latest attack in international waters, the US military has blown up a boat and killed two sailors. Since September, it has killed at least 128 sailors in 37 strikes at the orders of President Donald Trump after declaring them narco-terrorists — without providing evidence or identifying those it killed.
In the latest attack in the international waters, the US military on Thursday blew up a boat in the Eastern Pacific and killed two sailors.
In a statement, the US Southern Command said that it struck a boat operated by designated terrorist organisations.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Two narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed,” the Southern Command said.
As with previous strikes, the US military did not identify those it killed, did not offer any evidence of their involvement in narco-terrorism, and did not identify the purported designated terrorist organisation allegedly operating the boat.
Since September 2, at the orders of President Donald Trump, the US military has killed at least 128 sailors in 37 strikes after declaring them as narco-terrorists, according to a tracker maintained by The New York Times.
The Trump administration has carried out these killings without identifying those it killed or providing evidence of their involvement in narcotics trade. These strikes —dubbed Operation Southern Spear by the Trump administration— have widely been condemned as illegal.
On Feb. 5, 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 narco-trafficking… pic.twitter.com/B3ctyN1lke
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) February 6, 2026
Under longstanding US policy that Trump has now abandoned, suspected drug traffickers were intercepted in the seas, arrested, and brought to the United States to stand trial. But Trump has instead ordered their killings without any trial as if they were enemy combatants in an active warzone.
While the entire policy of such killings has been questioned, some of these strikes have stood out for multiple violations.
In the first strike on September 2, the US military used a plane disguised as a civilian aircraft to strike a boat, according to The New York Times.
It was a clear case of war crime under the international law as well as the US law and war manuals. Such instances of a military feigning civilian status —disguising either personnel or equipment— are known as ‘perfidy’ and are banned both in the United States and under international law.
In that strike, the US military also carried out a secondary attack to kill two unarmed shipwrecked survivors of the first strike. That secondary strike also attracted accusations of war crime as killing unarmed shipwrecked sailors is outlawed under both US military rules and international law.
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