US Southern Command announced on Friday that its forces bombed a small boat in the Eastern Pacific Ocean a day earlier, as the US bombing campaign targeting alleged drug-running vessels in the waters of Latin America continues.
As usual, SOUTHCOM offered no evidence to back up its claim that the boat was carrying drugs, something the Pentagon hasn’t done for any of the dozens of vessels it has blown up since the bombing campaign began on September 2, 2025.
SOUTHCOM said three people survived the strikes, but later in the day, the US Coast Guard said that it retrieved two dead bodies and one survivor from the strike. The bodies and the survivor were then transferred to the Costa Rican Coast Guard.
SOUTHCOM described the three victims of the strikes as “narco-terrorists,” a term the Trump administration has used to justify extra-judicial executions at sea for an alleged crime that doesn’t receive the death penalty in the US.
According to a count from Airwars, the strike brings the total number of people killed in the bombing campaign to 159. Airwars classifies all the deaths as civilians since they are non-combatants and posed no threat to the US military at the time of the attacks.
The strikes on small boats are part of a US military operation dubbed “Operation Southern Spear,” which also involved the January 3 attack on Venezuela to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The US assault on Venezuela killed 83 people, including four civilians.
