U.S. military strikes three alleged drug boats in one night, killing 11 in Pacific and Caribbean

Late on Feb. 16, 2026, at the direction of U.S. Southern Command commander Marine Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted three near-simultaneous "lethal kinetic strikes" on three vessels that SOUTHCOM said were operated by designated terrorist organizations and were transiting known narco-trafficking routes. Eleven men were killed: four on the first vessel in the eastern Pacific, four on the second in the eastern Pacific, and three on the third in the Caribbean. No U.S. military forces were harmed. SOUTHCOM released no evidence for its allegations and made no attempt at interdiction, arrest, or any judicial process before the killings.

The strikes were the deadliest single day to that point in Operation Southern Spear, the open-ended military campaign against alleged drug-trafficking vessels that the administration began in September 2025. Independent reporting noted that the identities of those killed were not released and that legal experts have characterized the campaign as a series of extrajudicial killings carried out where no recognized armed conflict exists. Families in Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago have come forward to identify victims as fishermen or workers and have pursued legal action.

This entry records one strike within the broader SOUTHCOM drug-boat-strike campaign (episode southcom-drug-boat-strikes). Two distinct abuses attach: the extrajudicial use of lethal force against suspects who were neither charged nor afforded due process, and the politicization of the uniformed services through their assignment to lethal counter-narcotics operations that ordinarily belong to courts and law enforcement.