US boat strikes kill 8 in eastern Pacific, adding to drug war death toll

The US military said Monday that it attacked three boats accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing a total of eight people as scrutiny over the boat strikes is intensifying in the US Congress.

The US military said in a statement on social media that the strikes targeted “designated terrorist organisations”, killing three people in the first vessel, two in the second boat and three in the third boat. It did not provide evidence of their alleged drug trafficking but posted a video of a boat moving through water before exploding.

US President Donald Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

But the Trump administration is facing increasing scrutiny from lawmakers over the boat strike campaign, which has killed at least 95 people in 25 known strikes since early September, including a follow-up strike that killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of a boat after the first hit.

The latest boat strikes follow Trump’s executive order earlier on Monday that designated fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” , a move that dramatically expands the US government’s authority to fight the synthetic opioid blamed for tens of thousands of American overdose deaths each year.