US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced on February 13 that its forces bombed a small boat in the Caribbean Sea, marking the fourth US strike this year against small vessels allegedly running drugs in the waters of Latin America.
The command didn’t offer any evidence to back up its claim that the boat was running drugs, something the Pentagon hasn’t provided for any of the vessels it has blown up in the region.
SOUTHCOM said the strike killed three “narco-terrorists,” a term the Trump administration uses to justify the extrajudicial executions at sea. According to Antiwar.com’s count, at least 124 people have been killed since the bombing campaign started on September 2, and a total of 40 boats have been blown up.
Airwars, which takes into account people who survived the initial attack but are presumed to have died, has recorded a total of 130 deaths. All of the people killed are recorded as civilians since they are non-combatants and posed no threat to the US military at the time of the attacks.
The bombing campaign began with strikes on boats in the Caribbean near the coast of Venezuela, and by the end of October 2025, it expanded to the Eastern Pacific Ocean, where the majority of strikes have now been launched. The February 13 strike marked the first one of 2026 that targeted a boat in the Caribbean.
The US military campaign in Latin America, dubbed “Operation Southern Spear,” also involved the attack on Venezuela to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, which killed at least 83 people.
The US military suffered its first death of the campaign over the weekend when Lance Cpl. Chukwuemeka E. Oforah, a 21-year-old Marine, fell overboard into the waters of the Caribbean and was declared dead after an extensive search.
