The United States military has attacked a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two men, as the Trump administration wages a months-long campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America.
The latest attack on Wednesday brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the US military to at least 207 since the administration began targeting those it calls "narcoterrorists" in early September.
As with most of the military's statements on strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, US 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 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 and fatal overdoses claiming American lives.
But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing "narcoterrorists."
On June 3, 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/wCHvnSJf3O
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) June 4, 2026
Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the US over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.
The strikes have drawn intense scrutiny from some Democratic lawmakers and military legal scholars. The US military's first strike in early September drew particular concern from some lawmakers and those who study military law.
The Pentagon's watchdog in May said 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 is known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle and not on the legality of the strikes, the inspector general's office said.
