Videos posted on X show small boats skimming across open water. Then each one vanishes in a bright blast.
The US military said Sunday that it blew up two boats accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Saturday. Five people were killed. One survived.
US Southern Command said on X that it had notified the Coast Guard to start the search-and-rescue system for the survivor. The Coast Guard confirmed it was coordinating the search and promised updates when it had them.
The strikes push the death toll from US military boat attacks to at least 168 since early September, when the Trump administration began going after those it calls “narcoterrorists.” As in most of its statements on the dozens of strikes in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, Southern Command said it hit the alleged traffickers along known smuggling routes. It did not provide evidence that the vessel was carrying drugs.
The legal and practical questions
President Donald Trump has said the US is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America. He has defended the attacks as a needed escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the country and the fatal overdoses that follow. His administration has offered little evidence for its claims about who is being killed.
Critics question whether the boat strikes are legal at all, and whether they work. One reason for the doubt: much of the fentanyl behind fatal overdoses is typically trafficked into the US over land from Mexico, where it is made with chemicals imported from China and India. The administration has also been sued over a strike on an alleged drug boat.
Running alongside the Iran war
The campaign in Latin America has carried on while the military has been focused on the Middle East, where the US fought a war with Iran for several weeks. On Sunday, after ceasefire talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement, Trump said the Navy would start blockading ships entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz. He wants to weaken Iran’s main leverage after demanding that it reopen the waterway, through which 20% of global oil normally passes. US Central Command said the blockade would involve Iranian ports.
