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The U.S. military announced that it had carried out another attack on vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Saturday, bringing the total death toll of its boat strike campaign to 168 people as President Donald Trump threatens the same “system” of attacks against Iran, despite the ceasefire.
U.S. Southern Command, also known as SOUTHCOM, posted a video of the strike on social media. “Applying total systemic friction on the cartels,” the command said.
According to the post, the U.S. carried out two strikes on two vessels that officials alleged were on “known narco-trafficking routes,” without evidence. The strikes killed five people, while one person survived. “Following the engagements, USSOUTHCOM immediately notified U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivor,” the post said. The fate of the survivor is unknown.
This brings the total number of known strikes to 48 in an operation that has been broadly criticized as an illegal campaign against civilians with little to no legal framework to back it up.
“With the latest attack, a total of 168 people have been killed. This murder spree is unconscionable and illegal,” said Amnesty International USA in a post on social media.
Ben Saul, UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, recently opened up a call for input on a report he is preparing on the U.S. and other American states’ designation of drug trafficking groups as “terrorists” and the “serious violations of international law” that have come as a result.
The boat strike campaign has continued throughout the administration’s war on Iran — another military engagement widely deemed as illegal by experts.
On Monday, amid the temporary ceasefire, the U.S. began its own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said that the U.S. would attack any Iranian ships that tried to cross the strait, in a threatening and self-contradicting post on Truth Social.
Trump repeated his assertion that the U.S. has “completely obliterated” Iran’s navy, suggesting that the U.S. and Israel have destroyed 158 ships. However, he said that there are a number of Iranian ships that the U.S. has not targeted.
“What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, ‘fast attack ships,’ because we did not consider them much of a threat. Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea. It is quick and brutal,” Trump said.
According to a memo to seafarers seen by Reuters, the U.S. military is enforcing a blockade on the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea east of the strait on “all vessel traffic regardless of flag.”
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