US military says it struck suspected drug-trafficking vessel, 4 killed

The US military claimed it was targeting 'narco-terrorists'

The US military said it killed four people in a strike on a vessel in the Caribbean on Saturday, alleging that it was involved in drug trafficking.“On September 19, under the direction of Southern Command, Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean.

,” US Southern Command said in a post on X."Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel's active involvement in narco-trafficking. The operation killed four narco-terrorists," it added.

The strike is part of a campaign launched last year against what the Trump administration describes as “narco-terrorists”. Rights groups have criticised the operations as “extrajudicial killings”.The latest strike brings the reported death toll from US military attacks on boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean to at least 231 people across 69 strikes since the Trump administration began targeting groups it labels “narcoterrorists” nearly a year ago.The Trump administration has also sought to expand the campaign on land through cooperation with governments in Latin America. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had agreed to joint US operations against criminal groups, though Guatemala later denied reaching such an agreement. Ecuador has conducted similar operations with US support since March.Trump has described the US as being in an “armed conflict” with Latin American cartels and defended the strikes as necessary to curb drug trafficking into the United States and the resulting overdose deaths. The administration, however, has faced criticism over the limited evidence it has publicly provided to substantiate its claims about those killed in the operations.