The United States is running a lethal campaign against boats it says carry drugs. Here is what we know. Since September 2025, the Trump administration has carried out strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific that it describes as narco-trafficking boats. As of October 4, 2026, there have been 71 strikes, killing 238 people including 23 missing and presumed dead, with three known survivors, according to a Just Security timeline. The latest strike, on October 4, killed four people on a go-fast vessel. How does the US justify it? Southern Command says it acts on confirmed intelligence that the vessels are actively involved in narco-trafficking. The administration calls those killed narco-terrorists. Why is it controversial? The Pentagon has not released the identities of those killed or evidence of drugs on board. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and independent UN experts have called the strikes unlawful extrajudicial killings. A UN special rapporteur said there are reasonable grounds to believe some attacks constituted crimes against humanity. On September 30, a US federal judge ordered the administration to hand over its legal memo justifying the strikes for private review. The legal fight is now as central as the military one.