U.S. strikes boat in Pacific Ocean, kills two over alleged drug smuggling

The U.S. military kills two men, attacking a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean as the Trump administration wages a months-long campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America.

Since the administration began targeting ‘narcoterrorists’ in early September, the U.S. military has killed at least 207 people in boat strikes.

U.S. Southern Command said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs.

A video posted on X showed a boat speeding through the water before bursting into flames.

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. 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 and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”

Critics have raised concerns regarding the legality of these boat strikes because fentanyl continues to be the reason behind many fatal overdoses, which is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The strikes have drawn intense scrutiny from military legal scholars and lawmakers.

Two men almost survived the initial attack which killed nine others as they were clinging to the wreckage, but the vessel was struck again, killing them.

The White House confirmed the follow-up strike as “in self-defense” in armed conflict; however, legal scholars said second-strike killing survivors would have been illegal under any circumstance, armed conflict or not.

The Pentagon’s watchdog, which is the Department of Defence Office of Inspector General, said in May that it plans to look into whether the US military followed an established targeting framework when carrying out the strikes.

However, the evaluation is focused specifically on what’s known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle and not on the legality of the strikes, the inspector general’s office said.