US Military Strikes Vessel in East Pacific, Two Killed

The operation, conducted by Joint Task Force Southern Spear under the direction of General Francis L. Donovan, targeted a vessel allegedly operated by a designated terrorist organization. While two individuals described by the military as "narco-terrorists" were killed, one person survived the blast, prompting a search and rescue operation by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Ecuadorian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center.

This strike is part of "Operation Southern Spear," a campaign intensified since the January 3 capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. According to monitoring groups, the U.S. military has conducted approximately 38 such maritime strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific since September 2025, resulting in at least 130 deaths. While the Trump administration defends these actions as "deterrence through strength" against fentanyl and drug trafficking, legal experts and human rights activists have criticized the operations as extrajudicial killings in international waters. A landmark wrongful death lawsuit was recently filed in a Massachusetts federal court by the families of two Trinidadian men killed in a similar strike last October, challenging the legality of the military’s "judge, jury, and executioner" approach.