WASHINGTON — The U.S. army stated it carried out one other strike Friday on a ship accused of smuggling medicine within the jap Pacific Ocean, killing three males within the third assault this week and pushing the overall death toll above 200 people.
U.S. Southern Command introduced the latest strike in the monthslong campaign in opposition to alleged drug boats traversing the Caribbean Sea and jap Pacific with its typical language that the vessel was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations” and operated by a chosen terrorist group. It offered no proof.
Whereas the army’s social media bulletins all the time embody video of the assaults, this seems to be the primary with the footage in color as a substitute of black and white. The video exhibits a small vessel floating within the ocean earlier than it is hit and engulfed in a fireball. It cuts to what might be the boat in flames, surrounded by a big plume of parcels or another objects unfold round it within the water.
The assault places the demise toll at 202 folks from the collection of U.S. strikes that started in early September, with two other attacks announced Tuesday and Wednesday. The Trump administration has declared that the U.S. is at armed conflict with Latin American drug cartels, saying they’re behind the circulate of medication into American communities.
U.S. Southern Command stated in its publish on X that the strike got here on the course of Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the highest U.S. commander in Latin America, who on Friday additionally met with Cuban military leaders close to the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay.
