The United States military has attacked a boat in the Caribbean Sea, which has killed 3 people. This comes in the wake of sustained deadly air strikes that have killed at least 133 in both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean since September 2025.
U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) oversees military operations in both the Caribbean and Latin America. SOUTHCOM said that U.S. forces conducted a lethal kinetic strike on Friday, 13 February, which killed 3 people.
The U.S. military repeated its claim, without providing any evidence, saying that it was targeting people suspected of drug trafficking, describing those slain in the attack as narco-terrorists.’
SOUTHCOM released a video of an attack that appears to reflect a missile strike on a boat that explodes into flames. The U.S. military attack left that vessel obliterated.
International law and human rights experts have been repeatedly asserting that such attacks amount to extrajudicial executions, even if those targeted are alleged to be engaged in trafficking narcotics.
The referred killings on Friday, 13 February, followed an attack on Monday, 9 February, in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The latter incident involved SOUTHCOM striking a vessel, resulting in the deaths of 2 people and leaving 1 survivor.
SOUTHCOM also shared that it had notified the U.S. Coast Guard that there was a survivor from the eastern Pacific Ocean attack. However, it did not provide details on the survivor’s condition or the chances of rescue or survival.
The first attack by U.S. forces on vessels in international waters took place five months ago, in September 2025. That included a follow-up strike that killed survivors who were clinging to the wreckage of a destroyed boat.
U.S. administration officials, who included Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth and the commander of the operation, Admiral Frank Bradley, had been placed under scrutiny for the order to carry out the referred 2nd follow-up attack on survivors.
