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The United States confirmed that a military strike on a suspected drug-trafficking vessel in the Caribbean resulted in the deaths of three people, whom Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth identified as “narco-terrorists.”
This incident is the latest in a series of over 15 recent US strikes, which have involved a massive deployment of Navy ships and F-35 jets and have killed at least 65 people in international waters.
The ongoing attacks have drawn sharp criticism, with the United Nations human rights chief, Volker Turk, condemning the strikes as “unacceptable” extrajudicial killings that lack “justification in international law.”
Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro accused the US of using anti-trafficking efforts as a pretext for seeking regime change.
Despite the international backlash, the US has justified the use of force by informing Congress it is engaged in an “armed conflict” with Latin American drug cartels, and Hegseth insisted that Washington would continue to “hunt… and kill” alleged traffickers.
