The US military said on Friday it killed three alleged drug traffickers in a strike on a boat in the Caribbean.
The 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.
“Three narcoterrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed,” US Southern Command said in a statement on social media.
A video linked to the post shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames.
President Donald Trump has said the US is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs.
A combination of screen grabs from a video posted on February 5 shows a vessel before (top) and during a US anti-narcotics strike. Photo: X/US Southern Command/AFP
But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists”, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations that have expanded from the Caribbean to the Pacific.