US forces struck another alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean, killing three people, defense secretary Pete Hegseth has said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s controversial campaign to at least 70.
The US began carrying out such strikes – which some experts say amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers – in early September, taking aim at vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
The US strikes have destroyed at least 18 vessels so far – 17 boats and a semi-submersible – but Washington has yet to make public any concrete evidence that its targets were smuggling narcotics or posed a threat to the United States.
Hegseth released footage on X of the latest strike, which he said took place in international waters like the previous strikes and targeted “a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization.”
No US forces were harmed in the operation, he said.
“To all narco-terrorists who threaten our homeland: if you want to stay alive, stop trafficking drugs. If you keep trafficking deadly drugs – we will kill you,” he wrote.
Like some previous videos released by the US government, a section of the boat is obfuscated for unspecified reasons.
President Donald Trump’s administration has built up significant forces in Latin America, in what it says is its campaign to stamp out drug trafficking.
So far it has deployed six Navy ships in the Caribbean, sent F-35 stealth warplanes to Puerto Rico, and ordered the USS Gerald R Ford carrier strike group to the region.
On Thursday, the US Senate blocked a Democratic war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to seek congressional approval to launch strikes in Venezuela, allowing the president to remain unchecked in his ability to expand his military campaign against the country.
The administration has developed a range of options for military action in Venezuela, according to two people familiar with the matter, and Trump’s aides have asked the justice department for additional guidance that could provide a legal basis to strike targets other than boats.
The governments and families of those killed in the US strikes on alleged drug boats have said many of the dead were civilians – primarily fishers.
Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly accused Trump of seeking to oust him.
US bombers have also conducted shows of force near Venezuela, flying over the Caribbean Sea off the country’s coast on at least four occasions since mid-October.
Maduro – who has been indicted on drug charges in the United States – insists there is no drug cultivation in his country, which he says is used as a trafficking route for Colombian cocaine against its will.
The Trump administration has said in a notice to Congress that the United States is engaged in “armed conflict” with Latin American drug cartels, describing them as terrorist groups as part of its justification for the strikes.
With Agence France-Presse
