The Pentagon on Sunday announced that U.S. forces have carried out a lethal strike on a vessel allegedly carrying suspected narco-traffickers in the Eastern Pacific, killing six people on board.
The U.S. Southern Command said it conducted "a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations" at the direction of the new leader of the Southern Command, Gen. Francis L. Donovan of the Marine Corps, who took over in January.
"Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations," the Southern Command said in a press release.
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Six men on the ship were killed, but no U.S. forces died in the attack on the vessel, according to the Southern Command.
The latest strike brings the death toll in the Trump administration's attacks on ships carrying people it accuses of drug smuggling to at least 156, according to The New York Times.
This was the 45th strike since the U.S. began targeting boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific in early September and comes amid a recent increase in the pace of strikes, the newspaper reported.
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The attack on Sunday was one of the deadliest boat strikes the military has conducted in recent weeks.
"Going on offense with Operation Southern Spear has restored deterrence against the narco-terrorist cartels that profited from poisoning Americans," Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said last week. "Last month, we went a few weeks without targeting a single boat. Why? Well, because we couldn't find a whole lot of boats to sink, and that's the whole point is to establish deterrence from narco-terrorists who have been able to traffic almost unfettered."
The Pentagon has refused to release the identities of those killed in the strikes since last fall or provide evidence of drugs on board.
The administration has been scrutinized in recent months over the strikes, including by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has raised concerns about killing people without due process and the possibility of killing innocent people.
"I look at my colleagues who say they're pro-life, and they value God's inspiration in life, but they don't give a s‑‑- about these people in the boats," Paul said in January. "Are they terrible people in the boats? I don't know. They're probably poor people in Venezuela and Colombia."
The senator previously cited Coast Guard statistics that show a significant percentage of boats boarded on suspicion of drug trafficking are innocent.
