{"id":200570,"date":"2026-02-16T01:25:01","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-strikes-second-alleged-drug-boat-in-a-week-bringing-death-toll-to-133-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T01:25:01","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:25:01","slug":"us-strikes-second-alleged-drug-boat-in-a-week-bringing-death-toll-to-133-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-strikes-second-alleged-drug-boat-in-a-week-bringing-death-toll-to-133-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"US strikes second alleged drug boat in a week, bringing death toll to 133 – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strike appears to be first in Caribbean since November, with vast majority of recent strikes happening in the Pacific
The US military\u2019s Southern Command, which oversees operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, said it had carried out its second deadly boat strike this week. The command said the latest strike killed three suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean on Friday.
\u201cIntelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,\u201d the Southern Command said in a statement<\/a>. The command included a video of the strike with its announcement, which shows a boat traveling through the water as it explodes into flames after being hit with what looks like a missile.
The Southern Command and the Pentagon did not immediately return requests for additional information.
The Friday strike comes after the Southern Command announced a deadly attack on another boat<\/a> in the eastern Pacific on Monday. That hit resulted in the deaths of two suspected drug smugglers, with one survivor.
Friday\u2019s killings bring the death toll to at least 133 people in 39 strikes, according to Pentagon statements tallied by the Intercept<\/a>. This appears to be the command\u2019s first strike in the Caribbean since November; the vast majority of the most recent strikes have happened in the Pacific.
The legality of these boat strikes is under scrutiny, with legal experts saying the attacks amount to extrajudicial killings by the Pentagon with a complete lack of accountability.
\u201cThose being killed by US military strikes at sea are denied any due process whatsoever,\u201d reads an analysis<\/a> published Friday by the Washington Office on Latin America, an advocacy organization. The Trump administration is \u201casserting and exercising an apparently unlimited license to kill people that the president deems to be terrorists\u201d.
Earlier this month, Gen Francis L Donovan was sworn in<\/a> as the new head of the Southern Command. Donovan took over after Alvin Holsey, a US navy admiral, chose to retire over reported disagreements over the boat-strike policy.
Friday\u2019s strike in the Caribbean<\/a> comes after the US launched an attack on the capital of Venezuela in early January, apprehending then-president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on alleged drug-trafficking charges. The Pentagon has framed its operations in the region as a campaign against \u201cnarco-terrorism\u201d, but has provided scant evidence of coordinated drug-smuggling rings.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strike appears to be first in Caribbean since November, with vast majority of recent strikes happening in the PacificThe US military\u2019s Southern Command, which oversees operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, said it had carried out its second deadly boat strike this week. The command said the latest strike killed three suspected drug smugglers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200571,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-200570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}