Six people have been killed in attacks on suspected drug boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean. US forces’ operations against drug smugglers have already claimed 76 lives.
Six people were killed in attacks on ships in the eastern Pacific Ocean that the US military said were carrying drugs, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Monday. The number of victims of such American attacks targeting alleged drug smugglers has increased to 76. TASR informs about this according to the report of the AFP agency.
Hegseth said on the X social network that there were two attacks on Sunday in international waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean targeting two drug-carrying ships. According to him, they were operated by organizations that are officially designated as terrorist. He did not specify which specific organizations were involved.
President Trump’s stance
According to the US Secretary of Defense, there were three people on board each of these two ships. “All six were killed. No US forces were injured,” he wrote.
“These vessels, according to our intelligence, were connected to illegal drug smuggling, carrying narcotics and sailing along a known smuggling route in the Eastern Pacific,” the defense minister said.
According to the AP agency, US forces have carried out 19 such attacks since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, claiming a total of 76 victims.
Legal issues of operations
In his post on X, Hegseth said that the US under the Trump administration is eliminating “cartel terrorists who seek to harm our country and its people.”
AFP informs that these attacks in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean, according to experts, represent extrajudicial executions, although they are known drug traffickers.
President Trump’s administration notified Congress in a letter in October that the United States is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels operating in the Caribbean Sea. However, several legal experts say that the use of military force against suspected drug smugglers far from the US border and the declaration of war without the consent of Congress is illegal, writes AFP.
