Since September, 128 people were killed and 37 vesselsare destroyed in Operation South Spearthe set of US attacks on vessels suspected of drug trafficking.
The United States carried out another attack in the Pacific on Thursday against a vessel suspected of drug trafficking, killing two people, the US Army announced.
The attack, announced by the US Military Command for Latin America and the Caribbean, took place in waters located close to the coast of Colombia.
US Southern Command announced the attack with a video, posted on social media, showing a boat moving through water before bursting into flamesand confirmed the death of two peoplewho he described as “narco-terrorists”.
The vessel “was sailing known drug trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was involved in drug trafficking operations”said the military command.
The attack was announced just hours after US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth claimed that “some of the region’s major cartel drug traffickers” have “decided to cease all drug trafficking operations indefinitely due to recent kinetic (highly effective) attacks in the Caribbean.”
On Tuesday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro made an official visit to Washington, where he met with his North American counterpart, Donald Trump, following recent public exchanges of criticism and threats between them.
Operation against narcoterrorism in Latin America
With this last attack, at least 128 people have been killed and 37 boats destroyed since Septemberthe start of the call a campaign of US attacks against vessels suspected of drug trafficking.
This is the second attack since the beginning of the yearfollowing a previous attack on January 23, also in the Pacific.
Donald Trump’s administration, which has already held more than 30 attacks not total, nnever presented evidence that the vessels targeted were in fact involved in trafficking.
Trump stated that the US is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to contain the flow of drugs.
The legality of the campaign, which officially targets cartels that supply drug trafficking in the United States, has generated intense debate both internationally and in American political circles.
UN experts and officials denounced the attacks as extrajudicial executions and a flagrant violation of the laws of armed conflict.
The families of two citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, killed in an attack on a boat in October, sued the federal government of the United States last week, calling the attack a war crime and part of a “U.S. military campaign unprecedented and manifestly illegal”.
This is the first court case made public arising from the military campaign and could test the legal justification of the attacks.
The campaign, which began in the Caribbean Sea, was the prelude to the military intervention of January 3in which the in Caracas, to transfer him to a federal prison in New York.
