The US military killed four people in a strike on a vessel it suspected of drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea, the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said on Sunday.
The operation is the latest in a series of US strikes against vessels that Washington says are involved in narcotics trafficking. The actions have drawn criticism from human rights organizations and international legal experts, who have questioned their legality.
In a statement posted on X, SOUTHCOM said Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere had carried out a “lethal, kinetic strike” against a high-speed vessel travelling along established drug-trafficking routes in the Caribbean.
“Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking,” the command said, referring to those killed as “narco-terrorists.”
SOUTHCOM did not provide further details about the intelligence it said established the vessel’s alleged involvement in drug trafficking.
The Trump administration has maintained that vessels targeted in similar operations since September 2025 were transporting narcotics. According to US officials, strikes carried out in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have killed more than 220 people so far.
The operations, however, have faced growing scrutiny from human rights organizations and legal experts, who have questioned whether the strikes comply with international law and have described some of the killings as extrajudicial.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and independent United Nations experts have criticized the operations and raised concerns about their legality.
Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, has said there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that some of the attacks “constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has also challenged the administration’s characterization of those targeted, describing the claims against them as “unsubstantiated, fear-mongering claims.”
The latest strike adds to an expanding US military campaign against suspected narcotics-trafficking vessels, while questions remain over the evidence used to identify the targets and the legal basis for using lethal force against them.
