Overview
- A U.S. military strike in the eastern Pacific on Saturday killed three people and raised the campaign’s publicly reported death toll to about 205 after multiple strikes that week.
- The White House and U.S. Southern Command say strikes target vessels 'engaged in narco‑trafficking' and run by 'designated terrorist organizations' to stop drugs before they reach U.S. shores.
- The Pentagon’s inspector general has opened a review of whether established targeting procedures were followed, and families, human‑rights groups and some lawmakers are pursuing legal challenges.
- Public‑health researchers and trafficking analysts report little change in cocaine price or purity in U.S. cities and say smugglers are shifting to land routes and container shipments, which reduces the strikes’ apparent effect on supply.
- Independent estimates put campaign costs near $4.7 billion and list deployments of AC‑130Js, F‑35s, guided‑missile destroyers and roughly 15,000 personnel, a scale that has increased congressional scrutiny and could reshape U.S. counter‑narcotics policy.