The U.S. military said Tuesday it carried out strikes on three boats accused of smuggling drugs in Latin American waters, killing 11 people, in what it described as part of a broader campaign against alleged traffickers using small vessels. The strikes, the military said, were conducted Monday, and were among dozens of operations that U.S. officials have tied to established smuggling routes in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean.
U.S. Southern Command said it struck two boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean, with each vessel carrying four people, before it also hit a separate boat in the Caribbean Sea that had three people on board. Southern Command said the attacks were aimed at alleged drug traffickers, but it did not provide evidence in its briefing that the vessels were carrying drugs.
Instead, the command posted videos on X that showed the boats being destroyed. The videos, according to the Associated Press account, showed vessels moving or bobbing in the water before explosions engulfed them in flames, with people visible sitting in two of the small, open vessels before they were destroyed.
Southern Command said the Monday strikes brought the death toll to at least 145 people since the administration began targeting what it calls “narcoterrorists” in small vessels in early September. The military said it carried out a series of strikes on 42 known boats, and Tuesday’s update came as the campaign continued amid political and legal scrutiny.
The attacks have drawn criticism over both legality and effectiveness. The Associated Press reported that critics have questioned the overall legality of the strikes and their impact, noting that fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses typically moves to the United States over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.
The boat strikes have also been met with intense backlash after reporting on an earlier incident in which the military killed survivors from the first boat attack with a follow-up strike. In that dispute, the Trump administration and some Republican lawmakers have said the actions were legal and necessary, while Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the killings were murder, and possibly a war crime.
President Donald Trump has defended the operations by framing the campaign as part of an “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America. Critics, including legal experts, have argued that the campaign’s structure and targeting decisions raise unresolved questions about accountability where people die.
The Associated Press report also placed the campaign in a wider military context, saying the administration’s pressure buildup in Latin America culminated with the capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was brought to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges after a Jan. 3 raid by American forces. Since Maduro’s capture, the military has reported several boat strikes and American forces have also seized oil tankers connected with Venezuela as part of the broader effort described in the report.
On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and three accompanying destroyers were in the mid-Atlantic and outside U.S. Southern Command’s area of operations, according to a Navy official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive ship movements. The Ford will, the report said, bolster U.S. warships in the Middle East that include the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, as tensions between the U.S. and Iran grow.
The reported strikes also intersect with domestic political developments, with the Associated Press saying Republicans in Congress defeated Democratic-led efforts to rein in Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks in Venezuela.