Legal experts say the U.S. attack amounted to extrajudicial killings, even if the targets were suspected of drug trafficking.
Published November 5, 2025
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the United States has killed two people in new attacks on ships in the Pacific, bringing to at least 67 the number of people killed in U.S. attacks on ships in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean since early September.
Hegseth claimed in a social media post late Tuesday that the vessels attacked were involved in “illegal drug smuggling,” but legal experts say such attacks amount to extrajudicial killings, even if the targets are suspected of drug trafficking.
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Hegseth said the ship “was traveling along a known drug trafficking route and was carrying drugs,” and that the U.S. military attacked it in “high seas in the Eastern Pacific Ocean” on the orders of US President Donald Trump.
Mr. Hegseth did not provide any evidence of drug trafficking, but a brief aerial video of the attack showed what appeared to be a stationary vessel in the water before the missile hit and exploded in smoke and flames.
The U.S. military erased the video so that the ship’s crew could no longer see it.
“We will find and destroy any and all vessels that traffic drugs into the United States with the intent of poisoning our people. Protecting our homeland is our top priority,” Hegseth said in a post on X along with the video.
U.S. military strikes since early September have now targeted at least 17 vessels (16 boats and one semi-submarine), but the Trump administration has yet to release evidence that the targets are drug smuggling or pose any threat to the United States.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for clarification on the legal basis for the U.S. to carry out such attacks in international waters, while Latin American governments and victims’ families have condemned the attacks, accusing the U.S. of mainly killing fishermen.
Last week, U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk called on the United States to halt the attacks to “stop the extrajudicial killings of people on these boats.”
The announcement of the latest killings came as the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford heads to the Caribbean to join a buildup of U.S. forces in Latin America mobilized by Washington to target so-called drug cartels targeting the United States.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who the US government has accused of involvement in drug trafficking, has accused the US of using the latest “war on drugs” as a pretext to remove him from power.
In an interview aired on the US channel CBS on Sunday, President Trump was asked whether Maduro’s days as president were numbered.
“I would say yes. I think so, yes,” the president said.
But he did not respond to questions about whether he would order strikes inside Venezuela.
President Trump had previously threatened to attack land targets linked to drug trafficking amid an escalation of U.S. military intervention in Latin America.
