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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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The U.S. military has said it killed 11 people in fresh strikes on alleged drug boats, marking one of deadliest runs of attacks of President Donald Trump's crackdown against those U.S. officials describe as narco-traffickers.
Two strikes were carried out in the eastern Pacific late on Monday, and a third vessel was struck in the Caribbean, the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said in a statement on Tuesday.
The military said eight "male narco-terrorists" were killed in the Pacific attacks and another three in the Caribbean.
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At least 145 people have been killed in more than 40 American military strikes in Latin American waters since early September, according to the administration's own numbers.
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The U.S. government has said it is in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels, insisting the campaign against alleged small drug vessels is necessary to clamp down on drug flows into the country and save American lives.
Experts and many lawmakers have criticized the strikes as illegal under international law. Congressional scrutiny of the attacks tightened after it emerged U.S. forces killed survivors of the first attack in September with a follow-up strike.
The attacks, accompanied by a vast U.S. military build-up in the Caribbean late last year, were widely seen as a way to pressurize former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Elite U.S. soldiers then captured Maduro, along with his wife, and brought them to New York in early January to face narco-terrorism charges.
The U.S. military shared footage appearing to show Monday's strikes. The video, bearing the word "unclassified" across the top of the screen, shows three explosions engulfing vessels. Flames curl up from the boats and smoke billows across the camera feed.
SOUTHCOM, echoing phrasing from previous attacks, said the three boats were traveling on trafficking routes known to the U.S. and no U.S. personnel were harmed.
Last week, a Marine on the USS Iwo Jima amphibious assault ship in the Caribbean became the first known U.S. casualty in the region since the start of the strikes on suspected drug vessels in September.
Lance Corporal Chukwuemeka Oforah was declared dead on February 10 after falling overboard three days earlier and becoming "lost at sea," the Marines said in a statement. Five U.S. Navy ships and 10 aircraft from different branches of the military were involved in a 72-hour search for Oforah.
The Iwo Jima transported Maduro from Venezuela to the U.S. last month.
The pace of strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific has shifted through the months, slowing after Maduro's capture.
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