US says two people killed in military strike on boat in Pacific

The US military’s Southern Command said it carried out a strike on Monday that killed two suspected drug smugglers in the eastern Pacific. The statement said the action was ordered “at the direction of” the command’s new commander, Gen Francis L Donovan, who was sworn in last Thursday after a navy admiral, Alvin Holsey, retired amid reported disagreements over the boat-strike policy.

Legal experts have described the operation as one in a series of extrajudicial killings by the Pentagon. The announcement was posted with video of the attack and said the boat was “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific”. The US Coast Guard was called to search for a lone survivor.

The latest deaths bring the tally to at least 130 in 38 strikes, based on Pentagon statements compiled by the Intercept. Earlier on Monday, US forces boarded a sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean as part of an oil quarantine aimed at squeezing Venezuela, defence secretary Pete Hegseth said.

Venezuela, eastern Pacific

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