US forces raided three alleged drug-smuggling boats, killing 11 people in the deadliest days of the Trump administration’s months-long campaign against alleged traffickers, US military officials said.
Monday’s military action brought the death toll from US attacks to 145 since September, when Donald Trump called on the US armed forces to attack small vessels it considers “narco-terrorists”. The Associated Press reported that 42 known strikes have taken place along notorious drug-trafficking routes such as the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
The US Southern Command posted a video on social media this week showing the strikes. Officials insist the boats transported drug-trafficking criminals, but no video appears to provide information to corroborate this claim.
“Intelligence has confirmed that the vessels are traveling along known narco-trafficking routes and are engaged in narco-trafficking activities,” the US Southern Command said. Officials said four people died on one boat in the eastern Pacific, four on another in the eastern Pacific and three on a ship in the Caribbean.
“There was no harm to US military personnel,” the US Southern Command said.
The US Southern Command carried out two deadly boat raids last week in which those killed were suspected of being involved in drug trafficking.
Many questioned the legitimacy of the US submarine strike initiative. Some legal experts say the attacks amount to extrajudicial military killings without the threat of violence.
“Those killed in US military strikes at sea have been denied due process,” according to a recent analysis by the Washington Office on Latin America, an advocacy group. The Trump administration, the office said, “has asserted and exercised an apparently unrestricted license to kill individuals whom the president deems to be terrorists.”
The latest spate of attacks comes weeks after US forces stormed Caracas, where Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was captured to face trial in New York on drug, weapons and narco-terrorism charges.
Although the Trump administration has portrayed the boat raids and Maduro’s capture as part of the fight against narco-terrorism, there is not much evidence of trafficking rings.
The Pentagon has deployed more than a dozen warships to waters near Venezuela to combat drug trafficking and illegal oil trade, the Washington Post reported. Most of those ships were sent eastward amid Trump’s military threats to Iran over its nuclear weapons program.
