The U.S. military says it killed four people in an airstrike on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean, in the second lethal strike announced in days.
Avisen Danmark reports, citing Ritzau, that the strike took place overnight into Wednesday, Danish time. U.S. Southern Command, known as Southcom, announced the operation on the social platform X and said four people were killed.
Southcom stated that confirmed intelligence had revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narcotics trafficking. The order to strike was given by Southcom’s commander, General Francis L. Donovan, according to the post, which included a seven-second video that appears to show a boat being hit from the air.
Donovan said in the post that the command intends to hunt, degrade and defeat narco-terrorist networks. He added that Southcom is determined to neutralize cartel terror and violence across the region and inside the United States. Anadolu Agency reports the same framing from the command’s statement.
No evidence released
Reuters, in coverage carried by U.S. News, notes that Southcom said the vessel was operating along established trafficking routes. The command did not give an exact location or name those killed, and provided no evidence that drugs were on board.
Per Avisen Danmark, more than 210 people have died in U.S. strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific since September last year, according to Reuters. UPI, using its own tally of Southcom press releases, puts the toll at at least 227 people killed in 68 acknowledged strikes since September 2025.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and independent United Nations experts have described the strikes as unlawful. Amnesty International has called for investigations, arguing that killing suspected traffickers at sea amounts to extrajudicial execution.
The administration of President Donald Trump has defended the campaign as part of its war on drug cartels. Washington treats the cartels as armed groups that pose a direct threat to the United States, Avisen Danmark reports.
Second strike in days
Southcom said on Monday that two people were killed in a strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific over the weekend. That operation was the first in more than two months, according to Reuters. A Southcom press release dated August 23, 2026, described it as a lethal kinetic strike carried out by Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere.
Reuters has reported that the boat strikes form part of a wider U.S. operation named Southern Spear, covering the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. The first acknowledged strike in that campaign was carried out on September 2, 2025.
