The US Southern Command attacked a boat allegedly linked to drug trafficking in international waters of the eastern Pacific on Monday, leaving two crew members dead and one survivor, the Southern Command reported. With this operation, 38 attacks of this type have already been registered, which have left 138 dead, without any known public evidence to support links with organized crime.
First modification: 02/10/2026 - 08:35 Last modification: 02/10/2026 - 08:37
A new boat allegedly linked to drug trafficking was attacked on Monday, February 9, by the US Southern Command in international waters of the eastern Pacific.
Two crew members died and one survived.
General Francis L. Donovan ordered the attack on what Joint Task Force Southern Lance calls "known drug trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific," arguing that those on the boat were "narcoterrorists."
After the attack, the United States Southern Command assured that it immediately notified the US Coast Guard to activate the search and rescue system for the survivor, as detailed by the Southern Command itself - responsible for military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean - in its X social network account.
There have already been 38 attacks of this type, which have left 138 dead, according to records reported by the United States Government.
So far in 2026, there have been three attacks ordered by Washington against vessels, such as the one seen in the 10-second video of Monday's airstrike: a small motorized boat is attacked, causing an explosion.
For this reason, jurists, human rights defenders and regional leaders accuse Washington of extrajudicial executions.
US Vice President JD Vance has rejected the attacks as a war crime, saying: “I don't give a damn what they call it.”
The Trump administration insists that the targets were transporting drugs, without providing evidence or publicly explaining the legal basis for attacking the vessels.
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That same Monday, the United States destroyed 10 tons of cocaine and arrested four suspects in an attack on a submarine, together with the Colombian armed forces, in the Pacific.
These operations occur a week after the official visit of Colombian President Gustavo Petro to Washington, where he met with his counterpart, Donald Trump, to iron out differences.
The Trump administration began these operations under the premise of a "total war on drug trafficking" on September 1, 2015. Thus, for the first time, it authorized the bombing of suspicious civilian vessels without prior warning or attempted boarding.
International law experts have argued that the United States' actions constitute a war crime.
However, with this order the presence of US military ships and aircraft in international waters of the Caribbean also began.
Subsequently, on January 3, 2026, the military intervention was carried out in Venezuela, in which the US detained President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Representative Cilia Flores, in Caracas, to transfer them to a federal prison in New York.
Maduro is accused of leading the Cartel of the Suns, described by the United States as a hierarchical and unified criminal organization, similar to the Sinaloa Cartel. However, on February 6, 2026, the US Department of Justice removed the description of Maduro as a "cartel leader" and defined it as a "clientelary system of state corruption."
The United States maintains that its actions are compatible with Article 51 of the UN Charter, which requires it to immediately inform the Security Council of any action of self-defense in the face of an armed attack.
With EFE and local sources
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