The US military has launched a fresh round of deadly strikes on foreign vessels suspected of trafficking narcotics, killing eight people.
The US Southern Command posted footage of the strikes on social media on Monday, announcing it had hit three vessels in international waters.
“Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking,” US Southern Command said in a post on X.
The black-and-white footage showed the vessels moving through the water before being consumed by large explosions.
The US has struck more than 20 vessels in the Pacific and the Caribbean near Venezuela as part of Donald Trump’s escalating campaign against drug trafficking in the region. At least 90 suspected drug smugglers have been killed.
The use of the military to attack suspected drug vessels marks a stark departure from historical precedent. The attacks have come under increasing scrutiny, with some legal experts saying they amount to unlawful extrajudicial killings.
The Trump administration has sought to defend the legality of the strikes. “Our operations in the SouthCom region are lawful under both US and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict,” the Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters earlier this month.
The strikes follow Trump’s executive order earlier on Monday that designated fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction”, a sign of the administration’s use of escalating and increasingly militaristic tactics to combat drug smuggling.
