The U.S. military said it carried out a strike Wednesday on a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea, killing four people, as the Trump administration pushes forward with a monthslong campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America while waging a war against Iran.
The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 163 since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September. Some 47 boats have been struck in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
As with most of the military’s statements on the dozens of strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. A video posted on X showed a boat moving across the water before it was engulfed in a bright explosion.
The military said the boat was operated by a designated foreign terrorist organization. It didn’t name the group, but the Trump administration has labeled several Latin American drug cartels as terrorist groups.
President Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. His administration has described the individuals aboard the boats as “unlawful combatants,” the same designation used by President George W. Bush’s administration to describe members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
“Applying total systemic friction on the cartels,” U.S. Southern Command said Wednesday.
Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.
The boat strikes have continued in Latin America even as the U.S. military has focused on operations in the Middle Eastwhere American warships and planes have been pounding Iran with strikes. Additional Marines and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division are either preparing to deploy or on their way to the region.
The tempo of boat strikes has slowed somewhat since early January, when U.S. forces captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York to face drug charges. Since that operation, 12 alleged drug boats have been struck, eight of which were traveling in the Pacific rather than the Caribbean.