Eleven people have been killed in a single day as the US military conducted strikes on three vessels suspected of drug smuggling in Latin American waters, marking one of the deadliest episodes in the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign.
These latest attacks, carried out on Monday, push the total death toll to at least 145 individuals since the administration initiated its offensive against what it terms “narcoterrorists” operating in small boats, beginning in early September.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” US Central Command said in a statement on X, along with a “unclassified” video of the strikes.
In line with previous statements regarding the 42 known strikes, U.S. Southern Command indicated that the targets were alleged drug traffickers along established smuggling routes. Two vessels, each carrying four individuals, were hit in the eastern Pacific Ocean, while a third boat with three people was struck in the Caribbean Sea.
While the military did not present direct evidence that the boats were transporting drugs, it did release videos depicting their destruction.
President Donald Trump has previously declared the US to be in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America, justifying these assaults as a “necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs.”
However, his administration has provided scant evidence to substantiate its claims of eliminating “narcoterrorists.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared earlier this month that “some top cartel drug-traffickers” in the region “have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean.” However, Hegseth did not provide any details or information to back up this claim, made in a post on his personal account on social media.
Critics have questioned the overall legality of the strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. overland from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.
