US kills 5 in Pacific as unproven drug smuggling claims persist
Al Mayadeen | October 28, 2026
The US military killed five people in a strike targeting a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Thursday, marking the latest operation in Washington’s expanding military campaign against alleged drug trafficking networks across Latin America.
US Southern Command said the vessel was targeted along what it described as “established narco-trafficking routes.” However, despite citing “confirmed intelligence”, the military did not publicly provide evidence that the boat was transporting narcotics at the time of the attack.
Footage released on social media showed a vessel in the crosshairs before being struck and engulfed in flames.
By media counts, the operation is one of over 70 such attacks carried out since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term, with the combined death toll now topping 240.
The operation comes amid a broader escalation ordered by the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has increasingly framed anti-drug operations as part of an armed conflict against what it calls “narcoterrorist” organizations.
Critics, however, have questioned both the evidentiary basis for many of the strikes and the classification of those targeted as “narcoterrorists”.
The US administration has yet to offer conclusive proof that the targeted vessels were carrying drugs, and the strikes have fueled a dispute over whether they are lawful.
Extrajudicial executions
The growing campaign has attracted increasing scrutiny from lawmakers, military legal experts, and human rights organizations.
Human rights organizations contend that the killings may qualify as extrajudicial executions, since the people hit appear to have been civilians who posed no imminent danger to the United States.
US senators have repeatedly called on the Pentagon to release unedited footage of the strikes, citing concerns regarding transparency and accountability.
Legal scholars have also challenged the administration’s justification for the operations, arguing that Washington has yet to clearly establish the legal framework underpinning the repeated use of lethal military force outside conventional battlefields.
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Examples of hate speech by Israel against Palestine
1. “There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001
2. “The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post, August 30, 2000
3. ” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
4. “The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
5. “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
6. “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.” Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.
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