The United States announced its 10th missile attack on a ship suspected of illegal drug trafficking, killing all six people on board.
Friday’s attack brings the total known deaths since the bombing campaign began to 43.
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It also shows that the pace of airstrikes is escalating, with the US government announcing three airstrikes in as many days this week.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the news of the latest bombing on his social media, identifying the victims as members of the Venezuela-based gang Torren de Aragua.
He also suggested that President Donald Trump himself had given new authorization for the attack, which was said to have taken place in international waters in the Caribbean.
“This vessel was known by our intelligence services to be involved in illegal drug smuggling, sailing along known drug smuggling routes, and carrying drugs,” Hegseth wrote, without providing any evidence to justify his claims.
Hegseth added that this was the first attack by the military on a boat at night.
He reiterated the Trump administration’s new claim that drug traffickers should be treated no differently than armed groups like al-Qaeda.
“If you were a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we would treat you the same way we would treat al-Qaeda,” Hegseth said. “Day and night, we map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you.”
The announcement came as the Pentagon said it had sent the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, along with warships and aircraft, to the Southern Caribbean to “interdict drug trafficking.”
Lots of legal questions
This year, the Trump administration began designating Latin American cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations,” a label traditionally used to describe armed groups seeking to use violence for political or ideological ends.
Legal experts also argue that the label of terrorism alone does not justify the use of military force.
Colombian and Venezuelan leaders have already condemned the bombings as “murder,” and United Nations human rights experts have condemned the killings as a possible violation of international law.
Treaties like the United Nations Charter primarily limit the use of military force except in cases of self-defense.
“International law does not permit the unilateral use of force abroad to combat terrorism or drug trafficking,” Ben Sole and other U.N. human rights experts said in a statement in response to the airstrike.
The bombing campaign began on September 2, with missile attacks killing 11 people. Two further attacks took place in the same month.
However, strikes increased in frequency and scope in October.
At least seven known strikes have been carried out this month, most of them concentrated in the Caribbean, but last week’s two were the first in the Pacific.
Two people survived the attack on the submarine on October 16, making the other the first survivor.
These survivors were then repatriated to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia. In Ecuador, the government released the man shortly after his arrival, saying there was no evidence to charge him.
Critics have compared the bombing campaign to extrajudicial killings. Families in Trinidad and Tobago, an island nation off the coast of Colombia and Venezuela, say some of the victims are their loved ones.
Family members said the men were fishermen, not drug dealers.
President Trump asserts authority
Still, the Trump administration has indicated it has no plans to slow down its bombing campaign against people it views as drug traffickers.
The US president has also repeatedly threatened to expand the bombing campaign to land targets, but that promise has yet to materialize.
On Thursday, President Trump was asked at a White House roundtable on illegal drug enforcement why he did not ask Congress for military authorization as the bombing campaign accelerated.
“If you are declaring war on these cartels and Congress is likely to approve the process, why don’t you call for a declaration of war?” one reporter asked the president.
Under the Constitution, Congress has exclusive authority to authorize military action, but in the past, presidents have issued “authorizations for the use of military force,” or AUMFs, to carry out specific attacks.
Critics say these powers are increasingly being used to justify unilateral decisions by the US president to launch military action.
Asked by a reporter about seeking Congressional approval, President Trump clarified that no such approval would be needed.
“I don’t think we’re necessarily calling for a declaration of war. I think we’re just going to kill the people who bring drugs into our country. OK? We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead,” Trump responded during a roundtable discussion Thursday.
A day earlier, at a press conference with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, President Trump also claimed that the number of drug overdose deaths justified his decision to carry out a deadly bombing campaign.
“This is a national security issue,” he said, claiming that drug trafficking has killed 300,000 Americans in the past year. “And it gives you legal authority.”
However, these statistics are not supported by U.S. government data. There were 73,690 overdose deaths in the United States in the 12 months ending in April, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If, as President Trump claims, each bombed ship saves 25,000 American lives, that number would be 250,000.
