US says it killed five people in strike on alleged drug boat
Latest strike brings death toll of campaign decried as extrajudicial killings to 243 people since September 2025.
The United States military has said that it has killed five people in a strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific, continuing a campaign condemned by legal scholars and rights groups as extrajudicial killings.
US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, said on Tuesday that five people were killed in the strike.
“On October 27, under the direction of SOUTHCOM, Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific,” it said in a social media post. “Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking. The operation killed five narco-terrorists.”
Tuesday’s strike appears to bring the reported total to 243 people. SOUTHCOM has often accompanied its announcements with videos that purportedly show vessels being struck.