The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced a fiscal year 2027 military spending bill that directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to submit information, including unedited videos, related to the strikes to the Senators. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
The U.S. military killed three people Thursday in its most recent attack on a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific, lifting the operation’s death toll to at least 211.
The Trump administration has been attacking boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific since early September, drawing allegations from human rights groups and the United Nations that it is committing extrajudicial killings.
Thursday’s strike was the 65th known attack by Joint Task Force Southern Spear, and as with the previous strikes, little information was made public by U.S. Southern Command.
SOUTHCOM said in a statement that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
A black-and-white aerial video of the attack shows a boat speeding across the water. It then erupts into smoke and flames. Debris floats atop the ocean.
The Trump administration alleged — without providing proof — that the boat was operated by one of the 15 cartels and gangs President Donald Trump has designated as terrorist organizations since his administration designated the first batch of eight in February 2025. The most recent designations were made early this month.
Trump has defended the attacks by saying the United States is in “armed conflict” with the organizations, while his administration has cited the terrorist designations as part of its legal rationale for using military force.
The strikes, however, have come under staunch criticism at home and abroad.
On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee advanced its fiscal year 2027 defense bill, which would require Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to submit unredacted investigations and supporting documents related to SOUTHCOM operations to relevant House and Senate committees. The bill also directs him to provide “unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations.” Failure to comply could result in Hegseth’s travel funding being withheld until the materials are submitted.
Democratic lawmakers have been demanding
A bill put forward by Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to require the Trump administration to release the video of the Sept. 2 strikes was blocked by Republicans, who control the Senate, late last year.
Internationally, human rights groups, as well as U.N. experts, have accused the United States of committing extrajudicial killings by using the military to kill suspected drug traffickers who have not been publicly shown to pose an imminent threat, in what are ostensibly law enforcement operations without charges, trial or judicial review.
“It is unconscionable that these strikes have now taken the lives of over 200 civilians with impunity,” Annie Shiel, the U.S. director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict organization, said in a statement earlier this month.
“We are witnessing an unacceptable normalization of this lawless campaign, and with it the Trump administration’s claim that it can execute anyone accused of a crime without any due process.”
In late April, 125 human and civil rights organizations, as well as peacebuilding and other related groups, issued an open call to end the attacks, arguing the effects of these deaths are having ramifications throughout the region.
“Families awaiting the return of their loved ones may never know what happened to them and have no access to recourse,” the call-to-action said.
“Coastal communities have witnessed human remains washing up on shore and fear for their lives when they trade and fish, sowing psychological trauma and undermining livelihoods.”
In March, Ben Saul, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, issued a scathing report stating the strikes were unlawful serial extrajudicial killings that “gravely” violate the right to life, while criticizing the Trump administration’s justification for them as “its phony war on so-called narco-terrorism.”
“Instead of focusing narrowly on kinetic suppression of narcotics, American States should invest more in addressing root causes, through development of vulnerable communities, and education, social and public health measures to prevent demand-side addiction,” he wrote in his report, while calling on the United States to “stringently regulate U.S. military-grade weapons” to stop their flow into the hands of cartel operatives.
Saul, on Thursday, issued a social media statement condemning the most recent strike, while calling on the international community “to break their silence and jointly denounce these murders.”
I condemn the US military's extrajudicial killing of three civilians at sea on 18 June, taking total US murders to at least 211 people since Sept 2025. I call on States to break their silence and jointly denounce these murders https://t.co/HM8mTUFVOf— Prof Ben Saul – UN SR Human Rights & Counterterror (@profbensaul) June 19, 2026
