US forces on Thursday struck another alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean, killing three people, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said, bringing the death toll from Washington’s controversial anti-narcotics campaign to at least 70.
The US began carrying out such strikes — which experts say amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers — in early September, taking aim at vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
The US strikes have destroyed at least 18 vessels so far — 17 boats and a semi-submersible — but Washington has yet to make public any concrete evidence that its targets were smuggling narcotics or posed a threat to the US.
Photo: AFP
Hegseth released aerial footage of the latest strike on social media, which he said took place in international waters like the previous strikes and targeted “a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization.”
The video showed a boat traveling through the water before exploding into flames.
“Three male narco-terrorists — who were aboard the vessel — were killed,” Hegseth said, without any further identifying information.
“To all narco-terrorists who threaten our homeland: If you want to stay alive, stop trafficking drugs. If you keep trafficking deadly drugs — we will kill you,” he wrote.
Like some previous videos released by the US government, a section of the boat is obfuscated for unspecified reasons.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has built up significant forces in Latin America, in what it says is a campaign to stamp out drug trafficking.
So far it has deployed six US Navy ships in the Caribbean, sent F-35 planes to Puerto Rico and ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to the region.
The governments and families of those killed in the US strikes have said many of the dead were civilians — primarily fishermen.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly accused Trump of seeking to oust him.
US bombers have also conducted shows of force near Venezuela, flying over the Caribbean Sea off the nation’s coast on at least four occasions since the middle of last month.
Maduro — who has been indicted on drug charges in the US — says there is no drug cultivation in his country, which he says is used as a trafficking route for Colombian cocaine against its will.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RELATIONS: Cultural spats, such as China’s claims over the origins of kimchi, have soured public opinion in South Korea against Beijing over the past few years Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae-myung, after taking center stage at an Asian summit in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s departure. The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came the final day of Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade, and a day after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties. Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Xi, with the two
RSS