Watch: Trump’s brutal killing of two suspected drug smugglers…as chilling details of their US ‘INVASION’ are exposed
The US military carried out a strike on Sunday against a suspected drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific, killing two people said to be involved in narco-trafficking, US Southern Command has confirmed. The operation is part of President Donald Trump's ongoing military campaign against Latin American drug cartels, which has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers who argue the strikes constitute extrajudicial killings carried out without congressional authorisation or definitive proof of trafficking involvement.
Southern Command said the vessel had been "operating along established narco-trafficking routes", with black-and-white footage showing the craft, resembling a semi-submersible "narco sub", being destroyed in an explosion. The strike is the latest in Operation Southern Spear, launched last September, under which the Pentagon has conducted dozens of attacks killing more than 200 suspected smugglers across the eastern Pacific and Caribbean. Critics, including some Republicans, have questioned the campaign's legal basis and demanded unedited footage after reports that follow-up strikes killed survivors who appeared to be surrendering, a claim Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has defended as targeting an ongoing threat. Opponents also note that most fentanyl entering the US is smuggled overland from Mexico rather than by sea.
- US strike killed two suspected smugglers on a Pacific "narco sub"
- Part of Trump's Operation Southern Spear against cartels since September
- Lawmakers question legality after reports of follow-up strikes on survivors
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Two men were killed on Sunday when the US military struck a boat in the Eastern Pacific that officials believed was smuggling drugs. This is part of a wider campaign ordered by President Trump against Latin American drug cartels, using the US military rather than police or coastguard-style law enforcement to target boats suspected of carrying narcotics towards the United States.
The strikes fall under an operation called Southern Spear, which began last September and has now killed more than 200 people suspected of trafficking across the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean. Southern Command, the US military body overseeing the region, says the vessels involved travel along known smuggling routes, and some resemble makeshift semi-submersible boats used to move drugs undetected.
The campaign is contested because those killed are suspected smugglers rather than people convicted in court, and Democratic lawmakers argue the strikes amount to killings carried out without proper legal authority from Congress. Some Republicans and other critics have raised similar concerns, including questions over strikes that reportedly hit survivors after an initial attack, and over how much of the fentanyl reaching America actually arrives this way rather than over land from Mexico.