The United States Armed Forces released footage of a new attack on three vessels allegedly involved in international drug trafficking. A video posted by the U.S. Southern Command on social media shows the boats sailing in a tight formation, which is unusual, and the military said they were in a convoy along known narcotics-trafficking routes.
According to the statement, they “had transferred narcotics among the three vessels before the attacks,” but no evidence of such a transfer was presented. The attacks occurred on Tuesday, but the footage was only released yesterday.
The military said that three people died when the first boat was struck, while people on the other two boats jumped into the sea and moved away from the vessels before being attacked. The Southern Command immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate search and rescue efforts.
The statement from the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the South American area, did not reveal where the attacks occurred. Previous attacks were carried out in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
According to Politico, calling in the Coast Guard is a pattern shift, since the U.S. Army faced heavy scrutiny after American forces killed the survivors of an attack in early September, followed by a subsequent strike against the damaged vessel.
Some Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said that the military had committed a crime, while the Trump administration and some Republican lawmakers argued that the subsequent attack was legal.
The latest attacks bring the total number of known boat attacks to 33 and the death toll to at least 110 since the start of September, according to figures announced by the Trump administration.
