US military strike on alleged drug boat in eastern Pacific kills six | Donald Trump news

The US military says six men have been killed in an attack on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The United States military says it has raided an alleged drug-smuggling ship in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing six people as part of an anti-trafficking campaign.

Sunday’s attack brought the death toll to at least 157 since early September, when President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting what it calls “narco-terrorists” on small ships.

“Intelligence has confirmed that the vessel is operating along known drug trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and is engaged in a drug smuggling operation,” US Southern Command commander Gen. Francis Donovan posted on X, showing a video of the explosion as the small boat floated on the water.

The US Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes, as did more of the military’s claims of more than 40 known strikes in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea. The military has not provided evidence that the vessel was carrying narcotics.

Trump said the US was in an “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and justified the raids as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narco-terrorists.”

In a meeting with Latin American leaders on Saturday, Trump encouraged them to join the US in taking military action against drug-trafficking cartels and transnational gangs, which he said were an “unacceptable threat” to the region’s security.

To that end, Ecuador and the US last week conducted military operations against organized crime groups in the South American country.

With Saturday’s meeting, Trump aimed to show that he remains committed to focusing US foreign policy on the Western Hemisphere, even as he wages a war on Iran that has ramifications across the Middle East.

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes and their effectiveness, as the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is often shipped overland from Mexico to the US, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The boat attacks drew heavy criticism after it was revealed that the military killed survivors of the first boat attack with a follow-up strike. The Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers said it was legal and necessary, while Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the killings were murder, if not war crimes.

On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the campaign to hunt down boats accused of bringing drugs from South America had been so successful that it was now difficult to find targets.