WASHINGTON — The U.S. military said Tuesday that it carried out strikes on three boats accused of smuggling drugs in Latin American waters, killing 11 people in one of the deadliest days of the Trump administration's monthslong campaign against alleged traffickers.
The series of strikes conducted Monday brought the death toll to at least 145 people since the administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in small vessels since early September.
Like most of the military’s statements on the 42 known strikes, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. It said two vessels carrying four people each were struck in the eastern Pacific Ocean, while a third boat with three people was hit in the Caribbean Sea.
The military did not provide evidence that the vessels were ferrying drugs but posted videos on X that showed boats being destroyed.
The videos posted by Southern Command show the boats either moving or bobbing in the water before the explosions engulf them in flames. People can be seen sitting in two of the small, open vessels before they're destroyed.
President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in "armed conflict" with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs.
Critics have questioned the overall legality of the 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 also drew intense criticism following the revelation that the military killed survivors of the very first boat attack with a follow-up strike. The Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers said it was legal and necessary, while Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the killings were murder, if not a war crime.
The attacks followed the Trump administration beginning one of the largest buildups of U.S. military might in Latin America in generations as part of a pressure campaign that culminated with the capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He was brought to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges after a Jan. 3 raid by American forces.
The world's largest aircraft carrier was ordered to the Caribbean late last year and told last week to head to the Middle East as tensions between the U.S. and Iran grow.
USS Gerald R. Ford and three accompanying destroyers were in the mid-Atlantic on Tuesday and no longer in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of operations, according to a Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive ship movements.
The Ford will bolster an array of U.S. warships in the Middle East that includes the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.
Since Maduro's capture, the U.S. military has reported several boat strikes, while American forces also have seized oil tankers connected with Venezuela as part of the Trump administration's broader efforts to take control of the South American country's oil.
Republicans in Congress have defeated Democratic-led efforts to rein in Trump's ability to conduct further attacks in Venezuela.
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