US strikes vessel in Caribbean Sea, killing three — Asharq Al-Awsat
US military forces struck a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea, killing three people. Asharq Al-Awsat reports, citing Reuters and a statement by US Southern Command.
US Southern Command statement
US Southern Command said on social media platform X that it had carried out a lethal kinetic strike against a speedboat traveling along established drug-trafficking routes in the Caribbean Sea.
The command said it had confirmed intelligence indicating the vessel's active involvement in transporting drugs, but provided no further details. The US military described the three people killed as narcoterrorists. No information about their identities, the vessel's ownership, or its cargo was disclosed in the statement.
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Legal assessment of the operations
The administration of US President Donald Trump has stated that vessels struck by the United States since September 2025 had been transporting drugs. According to the information cited in the report, more than 220 people have been killed in such strikes in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Experts and human rights advocates in the United States and other countries have questioned the legality of these operations. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and independent UN experts have called such strikes unlawful extrajudicial killings. The American Civil Liberties Union has said that the Trump administration's claims about the people targeted in the strikes are unsubstantiated and intended to intimidate.
