The United States has confirmed the death of eight people in three different attacks against as many vessels in international waters of the eastern Pacific, near Colombia, within the framework of the anti-drug operation Lanza del Sur. The intervention, carried out this Monday and announced at dawn on Tuesday, is part of a military campaign with which Washington claims to be hitting drug trafficking routes in the region.
The Southern Command of the US Armed Forces (Southcom) has detailed that “a total of eight male narcoterrorists died during these actions: three in the first boat, two in the second and three in the third,” as indicated in a message published on its official X account, accompanied by a video of the operation.
The attacks have occurred against three vessels that, according to the US Army, operated in international waters and were linked to criminal networks. “Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting known drug trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and were engaged in drug trafficking,” said Southcom, which depends directly on the Department of Defense, directed by Pete Hegseth.
The operation has been carried out by the Joint Task Force Lanza del Sur, a name that the Pentagon itself uses to encompass this campaign of selective attacks against vessels suspected of transporting drugs and weapons. According to the official version, the strategic objective is to “interrupt the flow of narcotics and neutralize terrorist threats that use maritime routes for their illicit activities,” a formulation that explicitly equates drug trafficking with terrorism.
Since the beginning of this campaign, the United States has attacked more than twenty vessels in both the Pacific and the Caribbean, including areas near Venezuela. According to official data, at least 90 alleged drug traffickers have died as a result of these attacks, which represent a major change in the way in which Washington has historically approached this type of operations.
The direct use of the Armed Forces to attack vessels suspected of drug trafficking marks, in fact, a break with the traditional strategy of interdiction and police cooperation. A turn that Donald Trump’s Administration has tried to legally shield in the face of growing criticism from experts in international law.
Some legal scholars have warned that these attacks could constitute illegal extrajudicial executions. The Pentagon flatly denies this. “Our operations in the Southcom region are legal under both US and international law, and all actions comply with the Law of Armed Conflict,” Pentagon spokesman Kingsley Wilson said earlier this month.
This military hardening also occurs in an increasingly inflammable political context. Trump himself has assured on several occasions that he is preparing military operations on land in Venezuela with the argument of eradicating drug trafficking. Last week, the US president went a step further and stated that the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, was “next”, in reference to his strategy of regional pressure against governments that he accuses of tolerating or facilitating these networks.
According to military sources cited by US media, the naval attacks are already being interpreted as the prelude to possible land incursions into Venezuela, a scenario that would drastically increase tension in Latin America and consolidate a security doctrine based on direct military force beyond the borders of the United States.
