Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.

The murder spree being conducted by the U.S. government under the direction of President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth climbed to an estimated 185 people on Sunday after the Pentagon announced another bombing of a boat it claims was trafficking illegal narcotics.

“On April 26, at the direction of SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” the U.S. military stated in a social media post. “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed.”

While no specific evidence was provided publicly to back up the claims made by SOUTHCOM about Sunday’s strike, human rights experts and legal scholars have made clear for months that such lethal operations at sea — whether or not those targeted are in fact trafficking drugs — have no justification under international maritime law and that the extrajudicial killings should be seen for what they are:........

© Truthout