The U.S. military killed three people Saturday in a strike on a boat it accused of smuggling drugs in the Pacific Ocean — the fourth such attack in a single week, according to NPR. The week’s operations have now left 205 people dead.
No other details about the vessel, its crew, or its location in the Pacific were immediately available from the military’s account.
The pattern of strikes
Four attacks in five days is an unusually fast tempo for this kind of operation. The death toll of 205 suggests the earlier three strikes were far deadlier than Saturday’s, which claimed three lives on its own. The military hasn’t said how many boats were targeted in the prior attacks, what flag the vessels flew, or whether any suspects were taken into custody rather than killed.
The strikes raise questions that the Pentagon hasn’t publicly answered: under what legal authority the attacks were carried out, whether any of the boats fired on U.S. forces first, and what evidence tied the vessels to drug trafficking before they were hit. International law generally requires some form of consent from a flag state or a recognized legal basis — such as a UN Security Council resolution — before a military can use lethal force against a civilian vessel on the high seas.
It also isn’t clear whether any of the people killed were confirmed traffickers, crew hired under duress, or bystanders. No independent account of the strikes has been reported.
The military hasn’t said whether additional operations are planned.
Originally reported by NPR. Read the original report.
