Military conducts ‘lethal kinetic strike’ on alleged drug boat, leaving one survivor

The US military announced Friday it had carried out a “deadly kinetic strike” on a suspected drug boat and said one person survived the attack.

“On January 23, under the leadership of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations,” US Southern Command said in an article on X with video showing the strike, believed to be the first such attack in weeks.

The message did not specify precisely where the boat was coming from or where it was destined, but stated that “intelligence confirmed that the vessel was transiting known drug trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in drug trafficking operations.”

“Two narcoterrorists were killed and one survived the attack,” the message said. After the attack, Southern Command said it “immediately informed” the Coast Guard “to activate the search and rescue system for the survivor.”

No further details were immediately released. U.S. officials have provided no evidence to support their claims about the boat, its passengers, its cargo or the number of people who survived or were killed.

The army has been carrying out such strikes since September. The Defense Ministry identified some of the previously hit ships as coming from Venezuela.

Friday’s strike is the first to be publicly announced since the January 3 capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, accused of plotting narcoterrorism.

Maduro has pleaded not guilty.

In one incident on September 2, the military carried out a second strike on what it said was a boat carrying drugs from Venezuela after the first strike failed to kill all of its occupants.

Legal experts have said that if the second strike was ordered to kill people who would otherwise be incapacitated, it could constitute a war crime.

Admiral Frank M. Bradley considered survivors of the strike to be legitimate military targets, a defense official told NBC News last month.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at a December Cabinet meeting that Bradley “made the right decision” and that “we support him.”

According to official Pentagon estimates, American forces carried out at least 35 strikes before Friday which have so far left 114 dead.