US Southern Command
The US military says it has carried out strikes on three boats it has accused of trafficking drugs in the Pacific Ocean, killing eight people.
The US Southern Command posted footage of the strikes on social media and said the vessels were “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes… and were engaged in narco-trafficking”.
More than 20 vessels in the Pacific and the Caribbean have been targeted in recent months, killing at least 90 people, as part of President Donald Trump’s escalating campaign against gangs he accuses of transporting drugs in the region.
Some experts say the strikes could violate laws governing armed conflict.
The first attack by the US – on 2 September – has drawn particular scrutiny as there was not one but two strikes, with survivors of the first killed in the second.
Several legal experts have told BBC Verify that the second strike on the alleged Venezuelan drug boat by the US military was probably illegal, and would likely be considered an extrajudicial killing under international law.
Previously, a former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court told the BBC that the US military campaign more broadly had fallen into the category of a planned, systematic attack against civilians during peacetime.
In response, the White House said it had acted in line with the laws of armed conflict to protect the US from cartels “trying to bring poison to our shores… destroying American lives”.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected on Tuesday to brief members of both chambers of Congress alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Politico reported that the officials were set to show video of the controversial “double-tap” incident to all members of the armed services committees of both the House and Senate later this week. Hegseth has faced pressure to make the footage public.
In recent months, the Trump administration has accused Venezuela of funnelling narcotics into the US and has intensified its efforts to isolate President Nicolás Maduro.
He has designated two Venezuelan criminal groups – Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles – as foreign terrorist organisations.
Thousands of troops and the USS Gerald Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, have been positioned within striking distance of Venezuela.
On 10 December, US forces seized an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast, which the US claimed was being used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran in an “illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organisations”.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil called the seizure “international piracy” and has claimed Trump wants to gain control over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
As part of Trump’s wider crackdown on the flow of drugs into America, he has now officially designated fentanyl – the drug most responsible for deadly overdoses in the US – as a weapon of mass destruction.
