The Pentagon kills 6 people in a raid on a suspected drug smuggling ship at sea
US Southern Command said it carried out a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations” at the direction of the new commander of Southern Command, General Francis L. Donovan, a Marine, who took office in January.
“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was transiting along known drug smuggling routes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and was involved in drug smuggling operations,” Southern Command said in a press release.
The US Southern Command said it carried out a “lethal kinetic strike on a ship operated by terrorist organizations.” (US Southern Command)
Six men were killed on board the ship, but no US forces were killed in the attack on the ship, according to Southern Command.
The latest strike raises the death toll in Trump administration The New York Times reported that the number of attacks on ships carrying people accused of drug smuggling reached at least 156.
The newspaper reported that this was the forty-fifth strike since the United States began targeting boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific in early September, and comes amid a recent increase in the frequency of strikes.
Six men were killed on board the ship, but no American troops were killed in the attack on the ship. (Julia Demarie Nickinson/AP)
The attack on Sunday was one of the deadliest boat attacks carried out by the army in recent weeks.
The US Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon, said, “Launching an attack through Operation Southern Spear restored deterrence against terrorist drug gangs that benefited from poisoning Americans.” Pete Hegseth He said last week. “In the last month, we’ve gone a few weeks without targeting a single boat. Why? Well, because we couldn’t find a large number of boats to sink, and that’s the whole point is to create a deterrent from narco-terrorists who have been able to pass through almost unfettered.”
The Pentagon refused to reveal the identities of those killed in the strikes since last fall or provide evidence of the presence of drugs on board the plane.
The Pentagon refused to reveal the identities of those killed in the strikes or provide evidence of the presence of drugs on board the plane. (Wayne McNamee/Getty Images)
The administration has come under scrutiny in recent months over the strikes, including from Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who… Raised concerns About killing people without due process and the possibility of killing innocent people.
“I look at my colleagues who say they are pro-life, and they appreciate God’s inspiration in life, but they have no sympathy for these people in boats,” Paul said in January. “Are they terrible boat people? I don’t know. They’re probably poor in Venezuela and Colombia.”
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The senator previously cited Coast Guard statistics showing that a large percentage of boats boarded on suspicion of drug smuggling are innocent.
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