US military says it struck vessel in Caribbean, killing four

The US Southern Command said it “executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean”.

WASHINGTON – The US military said on Oct 4 that four people were killed in a strike on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea, the latest in a series of attacks that Washington says target “narco-terrorists” but human rights experts condemn as extrajudicial killings.

The US Southern Command said on social media platform X that it “executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean”.

It cited what it called “confirmed intelligence” to allege the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking, without providing more details.

It added that four people, whom it called “narco-terrorists”, were killed.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has said the vessels it has struck since September 2025 were transporting narcotics.

US strikes on such vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific have killed more than 220 people.

Experts and rights advocates in the US and abroad have questioned the legality of the strikes.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and independent United Nations experts have called the strikes unlawful extrajudicial killings.

Ben Saul, UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, has said there are “reasonable grounds to believe” such attacks “constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law”.

The American Civil Liberties Union has cast the assertions by the Trump administration against those it targets as “unsubstantiated, fearmongering claims”. REUTERS