US Pacific boat raid kills two as AFP tally puts anti-smuggling campaign toll at 189

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — American forces announced on Friday that they had engaged another small craft in the eastern Pacific that they suspect of moving illegal narcotics, reporting two fatalities and one person pulled from the water alive.

Officials described the episode as the newest in a long chain of comparable clashes over recent months; figures compiled by AFP now attribute no fewer than 189 deaths to the overall effort.

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) offered no clinical update on the survivor’s state but said it had called in the US Coast Guard to run search-and-rescue work.

On the social platform X, SOUTHCOM asserted, as it has after other incidents, that the craft was “operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations” and that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes”.

Greyscale clip bundled with the message shows a modest open boat under way, a round slamming home, and then a fierce detonation.

Since the opening days of September, President Donald Trump’s government has pressed strikes on hulls it associates with contraband runs, describing the posture as armed confrontation with outfits it calls “narco-terrorists” across Latin America.

Observers counter that Washington has still not tabled iron-clad proof tying every vessel fired on to narcotics work, sharpening disagreement over whether the rules of engagement hold up.

The Friday clash ranks as no fewer than the ninth of its kind inside the past thirty days.

Jurists paired with civil-liberty watchdogs contend the drumbeat of fire missions may skirt lawful process, citing indications that people without any clear, pressing menace to the United States have been on the receiving end.