The US military said Friday that it has carried out another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the Caribbean Sea.
US Southern Command said on social media that the boat “was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
It said the strike killed three people. A video linked to the post shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames.
Friday’s attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug boats to 133 people in at least 38 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared last week that “some top cartel drug-traffickers” in the region “have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean.”
However, Hegseth did not provide any details or information to back up this claim, made in a post on his personal account on social media.
President Donald Trump has said the US is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”
The new strike comes nearly six weeks after the capture by US special forces of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, who had said the American campaign of strikes was aimed at pushing regime change in the South American country.
The leftist leader is now incarcerated in the United States, where he has pleaded not guilty to drug and weapons charges.
