The U.S. military on Sunday said it struck a vessel in the Caribbean, killing two people, alleging that the vessel was operated by “designated terrorist organizations” that it did not identify. The U.S. Southern Command said no U.S. military forces were harmed in the operation and described those killed as “male narco-terrorists,” without elaborating.
This is the latest such attack condemned by rights groups as “extrajudicial killings,” which the Trump administration has said are aimed at “narco-terrorists.” There were six male survivors following the action, the U.S. Southern Command said, adding that it had notified the U.S. Coast Guard for the search and rescue of those survivors. “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” the military said in a post on X.
Part of A Broader Campaign
The use of the military to attack suspected drug vessels represents a stark departure from how the U.S. has historically dealt with such vessels. The strikes are part of Operation Southern Spear, a campaign carried out by Joint Task Force Southern Spear under the U.S. Southern Command, targeting vessels in both the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific that the administration alleges are linked to drug-trafficking organisations and cartels.
According to PBS News, the campaign’s death toll had reached at least 157 people by early March, since the Trump administration began targeting alleged traffickers in small vessels in early September.
Rights groups and some Democratic lawmakers have said certain strikes, including ones where survivors of an initial attack were killed in follow-up strikes, may amount to extrajudicial killings or war crimes, a characterization Republican lawmakers and the administration have rejected as legal and necessary.
Disputed Identities Of The Dead
The Pentagon has not consistently disclosed which cartels or organizations the targeted vessels were allegedly tied to, nor publicly identified those killed. The Guardian has reported that many of those killed came from poor families across Latin America and the Caribbean, with some having no apparent connection to drug trafficking, even as the administration maintains that its intelligence assessments consistently confirm the individuals involved were narco-terrorists.
(with input from Reuters)
