The Pentagon has released video showing U.S. military strikes on three vessels in the eastern Pacific that Washington says were involved in narcotics trafficking, operations that U.S. Southern Command said killed eight people on Monday (15 December).
"Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking," the military said in a post on X.
According to the U.S. military, intelligence assessments concluded that the vessels were travelling along established narcotics trafficking routes and were actively engaged in drug smuggling. The military said the operation resulted in the deaths of eight men.
The strikes form part of a wider U.S. campaign against maritime drug trafficking launched under President Donald Trump. U.S. officials say more than 20 vessels have been targeted across the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, including areas near Venezuela.
U.S. authorities estimate that at least 90 suspected drug smugglers have been killed since the campaign began. Washington argues the operations are lawful and aimed at disrupting transnational criminal networks that move drugs by sea toward North America.
The use of military force against suspected drug trafficking vessels represents a significant shift from previous U.S. approaches, which have typically relied on law enforcement interdictions and arrests.
Some legal experts have questioned the strikes, arguing that they could constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings under international law, a claim the Trump administration has rejected.
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European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a stark warning at this year's COP31 summit, saying the climate crisis iss advancing faster than governments' efforts to contain it.
Iran will not let a single particle of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, and any new U.S. attack would be met with strikes on distant American bases, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has said.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is stepping down amid reports linking him to a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China, throwing the future of the $4 trillion chipmaker into uncertainty.
Here's your AnewZ Daily Brief for 11 November. Today, we cover Russia-Ukraine peace talks, political tensions in Washington, strikes in Spain, espionage allegations involving Nvidia's CEO, and climate negotiations at COP31 in Türkiye.
President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to let European representatives join the next round of Ukraine peace talks while the United States continues to work towards what could become the largest prisoner exchange of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Azerbaijan and the UK have pledged to strengthen defence, trade and education cooperation after signing a joint declaration elevating relations to a strategic level in Dublin, Ireland on Thursday (12 November).
More than 333,000 people have been forced from their homes in Yemen since the beginning of August as fighting has escalated, including more than 24,000 in the past week alone, the United Nations said on Thursday.
A court in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has sentenced human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler to 12 years in prison on treason charges, after prosecutors accused her of passing sensitive information to Ukraine.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to double tariffs on Mexico unless it stops more than a thousand migrants who are walking north towards the United States, warning that they will be denied entry.
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