军事官员宣布，美军对另一艘涉嫌贩毒的船只发动了袭击，造成3人死亡，这是五天内发生的第五次此类致命袭击。美国南方司令部在社交媒体平台X上发帖称，其在东太平洋对“由指定恐怖组织运营的船只”实施了“致命动能打击”，但未点名具体组织，并表示“3名男性毒品恐怖分子在行动中丧生”。
根据法新社汇编的数据，最新的打击使此类行动的死亡总人数达到至少177人。本周一，美军称在东太平洋炸毁两艘涉嫌走私毒品的船只，致5人死亡；周二，军方称再次打死4人。特朗普政府坚称正在与拉丁美洲所谓的“毒品恐怖分子”作战。然而，美方未能提供确凿证据证明目标船只涉及贩毒，引发了关于行动合法性的激烈辩论。
国际法律专家和人权组织指出，由于袭击目标显然是未对美国构成即时威胁的平民，这些打击可能构成法外处决。今年1月，律师代表两名在加勒比海袭击中丧生的特立尼达渔民家属对美国政府提起联邦诉讼，指控“蓄意杀人缺乏法律依据”。美国公民自由联盟去年12月表示，尽管调查显示部分死者只是养家糊口的渔民，但美方仍在散布未经证实的恐慌性言论。上个月，部分民主党众议员已致信美洲人权委员会表达关切。
Three people were killed in a US strike on another alleged drug-trafficking boat, the fifth such deadly attack in as many days, military officials have announced.US southern command said it conducted “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations” in the eastern Pacific, without naming the alleged group, in an X post.“Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action.”The latest strike brings the total toll to at least 177 killed, according to a tally compiled by the AFP news agency.On Monday the US military said that it blew up two boats that it accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing a total of five people and leaving one survivor. Then on Tuesday, the military said it killed four more people in the eastern Pacific Ocean.President Donald Trump’s administration insists it is effectively at war with what it calls “narco-terrorists” operating in Latin America. But it has provided no definitive evidence that the vessels it targets are involved in drug trafficking, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations.International legal experts and rights groups say the strikes likely amount to extrajudicial killings as they have apparently targeted civilians who do not pose an immediate threat to the United States.In January, lawyers filed a federal lawsuit against the US on behalf of the families of two men from a fishing village in Trinidad who were killed in an October strike on a small boat in the Caribbean, saying the “premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification”.“The administration continues to push unsubstantiated, fear-mongering claims about who these people were, despite investigations showing that some of those killed were fishermen just trying to make a living for their families,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in December.Last month, the Democratic representatives Joaquin Castro and Sara Jacobs wrote to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, raising alarms about the killings and noting the names and nationalities of most victims remain unknown.The boat strikes have continued in Latin America even as the US military has focused on operations in the Middle East, where the US has been engaged in a war with Iran for several weeks.With Agence France-Presse