US Southern Command said on Tuesday that its forces launched another strike on an alleged drug-running boat in the Eastern Pacific and that at least one person was killed.
SOUTHCOM said there were also two survivors and that “immediately notified the US Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors,” though in previous cases, survivors have been left to drown.
The US command described the people it targeted as “narco-terrorists,” a term the Trump administration uses to justify what are extra-judicial executions at sea for an alleged crime that doesn’t receive the death penalty in the US.
The Pentagon has also never offered evidence to back up its claims that the boats it’s been targeting were carrying drugs, and several accounts from survivors and family members of victims of other strikes that were reported by Drop Site News suggest the US has previously targeted fishing boats that had no drugs.
The latest strike marks the first known boat bombing since May 6 and, according to a count from The Intercept, it brings the total number of people killed in the bombing campaign since it started in early September 2025 to 195. All of the dead were civilians since they were operating civilian boats, were not engaged in combat, and posed no threat to US forces at the time of their killing.
