The United States military has once again launched an attack on a boat in the Pacific Ocean, accusing it of carrying illegal drugs. The strike killed four people, the Pentagon said on Thursday (4 December).
Florida-based US Southern Command released a video of the attack on social media. In a statement, it said that, under the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the “Joint Task Force–Southern Spear conducted a lethal strike on a vessel operated by a ‘terrorist organization’ in international waters.”
The statement added that there was intelligence indicating the vessel was carrying illegal drugs and was moving through a well-known trafficking route in the eastern Pacific. According to the US military, the four people on board—described as “narco-terrorists”—were killed in the strike.
The video shows a sudden massive explosion on a small boat on the water. Subsequent footage shows the vessel engulfed in flames with thick smoke rising into the sky.
This marks the second such attack in nearly three weeks. Both the Pentagon and the White House are facing intense questions about the legality of these recent military operations. US lawmakers have pledged to investigate the first attack in September—during which two surviving individuals clinging to debris were reportedly killed in a follow-up strike.
According to a report by The Washington Post, Hegseth had verbally instructed the military to “kill them all” during the 2 September operation. Since September, the US says it has carried out 22 strikes on suspected drug-carrying vessels, killing around 86 people.
The administration argues that the United States is engaged in a war against drug traffickers and that such operations are lawful. However, most legal experts reject this justification.
Rebecca Ingber, professor at Cardozo Law School and former legal adviser at the US State Department, told The Guardian that even if the administration’s claims are accepted and the people on the vessel are considered “terrorists,” killing them would still be illegal if they were “hors de combat”—meaning unable to fight.
