THIS is dramatic moment US forces unleashed a lethal strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the Caribbean Sea.
Footage shows a boat wading through choppy waters before being hit by what the military called “a lethal kinetic strike.”
In the 11-second clip, a huge explosion is seen ripping through the vessel followed by a fire.
Three people have been killed in the assault carried out on Friday at an undisclosed location.
US Southern Command said on social media the boat had been “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes” in the Caribbean and was engaged in “narco-trafficking operations”.
A statement said: “At the direction of SOUTHCOM Commander Gen Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organisations.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transitioning along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations”.
No US military forces were injured in the attack, the command added.
Friday’s attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration strikes on alleged drug boats to 133 people, as per official figures.
More than 38 attacks have been carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific.
This comes after Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that “some top cartel drug-traffickers” in the region “have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean.”
The US has offered little evidence to back its allegations that it is killing “narcoterrorists.”
Critics have voiced concerns over the legality of the deadly US strikes in international waters.
“Those being killed by US military strikes at sea are denied any due process whatsoever, their lives ended by missile attacks carried out at the orders of President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, or the Southcom commander, with no basis under either US or international law,” read an analysis by the Washington Office on Latin America, an advocacy group.
“They are asserting and exercising an apparently unlimited license to kill people that the president deems to be terrorists.”
It added: “Some of those aboard the targeted boats may indeed have been transporting illegal drugs (as Trump officials claim, without presenting evidence).
“But involvement in drug smuggling is not a capital offense under US or international law, much less justification for extrajudicial execution.
“Indeed, the US Coast Guard, with occasional Navy support and modest funding, has decades of experience in boarding vessels suspected of transporting illegal drugs or other contraband and detaining their crews for potential prosecution in US federal courts.“
Both the UK and Canada have expressed concerns regarding the legality of US operations.
In November, British ministers are said to have paused briefings because they do not want to be complicit in US lethal strikes on suspected drug boats in Latin America, according to CNN.
