April 13 (UPI) — The U.S. military said it attacked two boats allegedly transporting narcotics in the eastern Pacific over the weekend, killing five people and leaving one survivor.
The strikes were carried out Saturday, according to a Sunday statement from U.S. Southern Command.
The Trump administration has been attacking vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific since Sept. 2. With the five killed Saturday, the publicly announced death toll rose from 163 as of March 25 to 168, according to a Pentagon posture statement from mid-March and subsequent SOUTHCOM releases.
Including the two vessels, the number of boats attacked rises to at least 49.
Saturday’s strikes were the first reported by SOUTHCOM since March 25 and the fourth publicly announced since the U.S. military began its war with Iran in late February.
As has been the case with all previous strikes, little information about them was made public.
The condition of the survivor was unknown. SOUTHCOM said it immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate search-and-rescue protocols.
Black-and-white aerial footage of the attacks was posted to SOUTHCOM’s social media account.
The 34-second footage consists of separate clips edited together of two boats on the ocean erupting into balls of flame, one after the other.
The Pentagon claims the two vessels were operated by designated terrorist organizations, were traveling along “known narco-trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations.” As it has with previous strikes, SOUTHCOM provided no evidence.
Since returning to the White House in January 2025, President Donald Trump has led aggressive anti-immigration and anti-drug trafficking crackdowns, designating 10 cartels as terrorist organizations in the process.
The Trump administration says the strikes target these cartels and are conducted under Joint Task Force Southern Spear, which launched in the fall to target alleged narco-trafficking operations.
Trump has defended the strikes by claiming the United States is in “armed conflict” with the cartels, but the campaign has drawn criticism from Democrats, critics, human rights organizations and the United Nations, some of whom have described the attacks as extrajudicial killings.
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