A new airstrike of the armed forces took place in the eastern Ocean, targeting a speedboat which, according to the same, was involved in drug trafficking activities. Three people were killed in the operation.
The incident comes less than 24 hours after a similar operation in the Caribbean in which two people lost their lives. These are operations that human rights groups describe as “extrajudicial executions” and Washington describes as targeted against “narco-terrorists”.
The vessel “moved along known maritime drug trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and was engaged in drug trafficking operations,” the US Joint Chiefs of Staff for Latin America and the Caribbean (SOUTHCOM) said via X, citing a “declassified” 28-second video that captured the hitting and destroying the speedboat.
At 190 the dead from the “mine attacks”
The Trump administration’s aggressive measures to combat what it calls “narco-terrorism” have intensified in recent weeks, despite the war in Iran.
More than 190 people have been killed in attacks against so-called “narco-terrorism” since September. However, the government has not produced conclusive evidence that the boats are involved in drug trafficking, which has sparked debate about the legality of the operations.
Human rights experts and advocates, both in the US and globally, have raised questions about their legality with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, arguing that the attacks amount to “unlawful executions”.
The American Civil Liberties Union calls the Trump administration’s claims against its targets “baseless, fear-mongering.”
On May 5, at the direction of commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking…
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom)
