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- The U.S. military killed 11 people in strikes on alleged drug boats.
- The strikes targeted vessels on known narco-trafficking routes, Southern Command stated.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military struck three alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean on Monday night, killing all 11 people on board, U.S. Southern Command said Tuesday.
"Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations," Southern Command said in a statement. "Eleven male narco-terrorists were killed during these actions, four on the first vessel in the Eastern Pacific, four on the second vessel in the Eastern Pacific, and three on the third vessel in the Caribbean. No U.S. military forces were harmed."
The strikes bring the death toll from the U.S. campaign, which began in September, up to at least 135 people killed, with several more survivors of the strikes presumed dead. The last U.S. strike on a suspected drug-trafficking vessel was carried out Friday in the Caribbean and killed three people, according to Southern Command.
Last fall, the Trump administration produced a classified legal opinion that justified the lethal strikes against a secret list of at least two dozen cartels and suspected drug traffickers classifying them as enemy combatants, CNN has reported.
The strikes have come under intense scrutiny, however, by legal experts and Democratic members of Congress who say they amount to murdering civilians since the U.S. is not in a declared, congressionally authorized war with drug cartels.
In at least one instance last September, the U.S. military deliberately killed survivors after an initial strike on an alleged trafficking vessel did not kill everyone on board, prompting accusations that the U.S. had committed a war crime and sparking congressional investigations.
Before the U.S. military began blowing up boats in September, countering illicit drug trafficking was handled by law enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard, and cartel members and drug smugglers were treated as criminals with due process rights. The Coast Guard has continued to interdict drug-trafficking vessels and seize narcotics in the eastern Pacific without the use of lethal force.
