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The U.S. military on Wednesday killed another four people accused by the Trump administration of trafficking narcotics by sea, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced, as the administration\u2019s lethal campaign continued to expand.<\/p>\n
Mr. Hegseth said on social media that the strike took place in international waters and was directed at a boat that he said was operated by a \u201cdesignated terrorist organization\u201d in the eastern Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s strike came two days after the deadliest known set of strikes since President Trump authorized the military to begin targeting people aboard boats in the seas of Latin America last month. On Monday, Mr. Hegseth said, 14 men were killed<\/a> in three strikes on four boats. More than 60 people have been killed in the U.S. campaign<\/a> in total.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The president has named and targeted a number of drug cartels as \u201cnarco-terrorists\u201d and maintains that they are now enemy combatants who can be killed at will.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe Western Hemisphere is no longer a safe haven for narco-terrorists bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans,\u201d Mr. Hegseth said in his social media post. He said the Pentagon would \u201ccontinue to hunt them down and eliminate them wherever they operate.\u201d<\/p>\n The defense secretary\u2019s announcement was accompanied by a 22-second video of a boat that was apparently struck and engulfed in flames.<\/p>\n Mr. Hegseth did not provide geographic details, beyond saying the strike took place in the eastern Pacific. After launching a series of strikes in the Caribbean Sea near the coast of Venezuela, the Trump administration has more recently directed the U.S. military to strike boats in the eastern Pacific, off the coast of Colombia.<\/p>\n A broad range of outside experts in laws governing the use of armed force have said the campaign is illegal because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians \u2014 even criminal suspects \u2014 who are not directly participating in armed hostilities. But the Trump administration has asserted that the president has the power to \u201cdetermine,\u201d without any authorization from Congress, that drug cartels and those who work for them are enemy combatants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Trump has falsely asserted that each destroyed boat saves 25,000 American lives. In reality, as many as 100,000 Americans die each year from drug overdoses, but most of those deaths are the result of fentanyl, which comes from labs in Mexico. South America produces cocaine.<\/p>\n The latest strike came as a growing number of Republican senators have privately expressed unease about being left out of the administration\u2019s deliberations. Some have signaled an openness to backing legislation that would require the administration to seek approval from Congress before continuing additional strikes. There is also increased concern among lawmakers that the administration may expand its campaign to include strikes on land targets<\/a> in Venezuela.<\/p>\n Seeking to address concerns about the expanding military campaign, national security officials held a briefing on Wednesday for Republican senators about recent strikes, drawing criticism from Democrats, who have repeatedly pressed for legal justification for the campaign.<\/p>\n