The US military killed four people on Sunday in another strike on a boat in the Caribbean that officials say was carrying drug traffickers, continuing a campaign that has now killed more than 235 people since September 2025.
US Southern Command said the vessel was moving along “established narco-trafficking routes” when it was hit. The military released video appearing to show an explosion tearing apart a fast-moving boat.
In a statement, the military said: “Under the direction of US 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.”
Southern Command said intelligence showed the boat’s “active involvement in narco-trafficking” but did not release that evidence publicly. The statement said “the operation killed four narco-terrorists.”
As with previous strikes in the campaign, the Pentagon has not identified those killed and has not produced evidence that drugs were actually aboard the vessel.
Growing scrutiny
The Trump administration has defended the strikes as necessary to stop narco-terrorism, but the campaign has drawn criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has warned about killing people without due process and the risk of killing innocent people. Human rights groups have called the strikes extrajudicial killings.
The administration is also working to expand its military reach onto land in Latin America. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said in August, during a visit to Panama, that Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had agreed to let the US conduct joint military operations against criminal groups within their borders, though Guatemala has denied any such agreement. Ecuador began similar joint operations with the US in March.
