Overview
- U.S. Southern Command said its task force hit a suspected drug-running boat Wednesday in the Caribbean, killing four men in a lethal strike under Operation Southern Spear.
- Officials said the vessel was operated by designated terrorist groups and moving along known smuggling routes, though no public evidence of drugs on board was released beyond a brief strike video.
- Public tallies now put the campaign at roughly 47–48 strikes that have destroyed about as many boats and killed at least 163 people, with a small number of survivors recovered in separate incidents.
- The administration has told Congress it treats these targets as unlawful combatants in an 'armed conflict' with cartels based on a classified Justice Department finding, while legal and human-rights groups condemn the killings as extrajudicial and likely unlawful.
- The March 25 action was the third publicly reported strike this month, continuing a campaign that began September 2 and expanded to the eastern Pacific as Coast Guard crews have conducted searches that sometimes recovered bodies or survivors.