Strikes on 3 Alleged Drug Boats Kill 11 as US Expands ‘Armed Conflict’ Campaign

The US military said it carried out strikes on three boats suspected of drug smuggling in Latin American waters, killing 11 people in one of the deadliest single days of the Trump administration’s months-long maritime campaign.

According to US Southern Command , the strikes were conducted on Monday along known narcotics-trafficking routes . Two vessels, each carrying four people, were hit in the eastern Pacific Ocean , while a third boat with three people aboard was struck in the Caribbean Sea . The military released videos showing the boats being destroyed but did not provide publicly verifiable evidence that the vessels were carrying drugs.

The latest operation brings the death toll to at least 145 people since early September 2025, when the administration began targeting what it describes as “narcoterrorists” operating small boats in regional waters. According to the US Southern Command, these fatalities occurred across 42 separate strikes carried out on vessels suspected of drug trafficking along known smuggling routes.

President Donald Trump has described the campaign as part of an “ armed conflict ” with Latin American cartels. He has argued that the cartels function as armed, organised groups , often using military-style weapons and controlling trafficking routes, posing a direct national security threat to the United States.

The administration has framed the strikes as a necessary escalation to disrupt maritime smuggling corridors and stem the flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl and cocaine , into the country. Officials maintain that traditional law enforcement measures were insufficient to counter the scale of trafficking operations.

However, critics have questioned the legal and evidentiary basis of the campaign, noting that the government has offered limited proof that those targeted were transporting drugs or met the threshold of combatants under international law.