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US military strikes on alleged drug boats kill 5 in eastern Pacific

The attacks brought the total number of known boat strikes to 28 while at least 104 people have been killed, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration

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The military said three people in one vessel and two in the other were killed. Image: Bloomberg

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The US military said Thursday that it had conducted two more strikes against boats it said were smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing five people.

US Southern Command posted on social media, Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations, though it did not provide evidence. It posted videos of each boat speeding through water before being struck by an explosion.

The military said three people in one vessel and two in the other were killed.

The attacks brought the total number of known boat strikes to 28 while at least 104 people have been killed, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.

 

President Donald Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted the US is engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels.

The administration is facing increasing scrutiny from lawmakers over the boat strike campaign. The first attack in early September involved a follow-up strike that killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of a boat after the first hit.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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First Published: Dec 19 2025 | 11:20 AM IST

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