US conducts 10th deadly boat strike as bombing campaign quickens

All six people on board a maritime vessel have been killed as a result of the US’s 10th missile strike on it.

The total number of dead since the start of the bombing campaign is 43, with Friday’s attack adding to that number.

The US government has announced three strikes this week in as many days, which is also a rapid escalation of the air strikes.

Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, identified the victims as Tren de Aragua members and shared the news about the most recent bombing on his social media account.

He further claimed that President Donald Trump had once more granted permission for the alleged strike in Caribbean Sea waters.

Hegseth wrote that despite providing no proof, “the vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling,” and that it was moving along a known narco-trafficking route.

Hegseth added that this was the first nighttime military attack on a boat.

He then made a second, stronger, point, repeating the assertion that drug traffickers should not be treated similarly to armed organizations like al-Qaeda.

Hegseth remarked, “We will treat you like we treat al-Qaeda, if you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere.” We will track your people, hunt you down, and kill you, whether it be day or night.

Legal concerns grow.

Latin American cartels have traditionally been referred to as “foreign terrorist organizations” by the Trump administration, but they have started doing so this year.

Legal experts also contend that using military force alone does not support the use of terrorism.

Colombia and Venezuelan leaders have already condemned the bombing campaign as “murder,” and UN human rights experts have also criticized the killings as potential violations of international law.

Treaties like the UN Charter, which forbid the use of force in self-defense, are largely exceptions.

In response to the strikes, UN human rights experts, including Ben Saul, wrote that “international law does not permit the unilateral use of force abroad to combat terrorism and drug trafficking.”

11 people were killed when a missile strike on September 2st, which started the bombing campaign. In the same month, two more attacks were carried out.

However, the strikes have increased in frequency and their scope expanded in October.

While the majority of the known strikes were concentrated in the Caribbean, two were carried out for the first time last week in the Pacific Ocean.

Two survivors and a first come to mind when an attack on October 16 targeted a submersible.

Since then, those survivors have been re-admitted to Ecuador and Colombia, their home countries. The government in Ecuador let the man go shortly after his arrival, claiming that there was no evidence to charge him with a crime.

The bombing campaign has drawn criticism from opponents of extrajudicial killings. Some of the victims have been named as their loved ones by families in Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago, an island nation off the coast of Venezuela.

According to the families, the men were fishermen and not drug traffickers.

Trump asserts authority.

The Trump administration has nonetheless stated that it has no intention of halting its drug trafficking campaign.

The US president has also repeatedly threatened to expand his bombing campaign to include targets overland, a promise that hasn’t yet been fulfilled.

Trump was asked on Thursday at a White House roundtable about his plan to crack down on illegal drugs and why he hasn’t asked Congress for military authorization as the bombing campaign progresses.

Why not just ask for a declaration of war if you are going to fight these cartels and Congress is likely to support it? The president was questioned by one reporter.

Although it has previously issued “authorizations for the use of military force” or AUMFs for the president to carry out specific attacks, Congress still has the exclusive authority to authorize military action under the Constitution.

Critics claim that US presidents’ unilateral decisions have been increasingly used to justify military campaigns.

Trump was clear that he needed no such approval when the reporter inquired about it.

“I don’t believe we’ll need to request a declaration of war.” I believe that we will simply murder those who enter our nation with drugs. OK? We’re going to murder them. At Thursday’s roundtable, Trump responded, “They’re going to be, like, dead.”

Trump had claimed that the number of fatal drug overdoses supported his decision to launch the deadly bombing campaign at a press conference with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte the day before.

According to him, “This is a national security issue,” claiming that 300,000 US citizens have lost their lives as a result of the drug trade. And that gives you authority.

However, US government data does not support those statistics. According to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 73, 690 overdose deaths occurred in the US between April and April.

Source: Aljazeera