LatinNews Daily - 08 June 2026

Region: On 3 June the US Southern Command (Southcom) said that at the direction of Southcom’s head, General Francis Donovan, a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel “operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations” was carried out as part of Operation Southern Spear in which two “narco-terrorists” were killed. This comes after Southcom announced similar strikes on 30, 29, and 27 May, which killed a further eight alleged narco-terrorists. Operation Southern Spear is being carried out by the US Defence Department as part of a mission to “crush illicit activity in the Western Hemisphere”. According to the Southcom statement, all targeted vessels were “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific” and were “engaged in narco-trafficking operations”. No US military forces were harmed in the strikes. A 3 June report by The New York Times, which has been tracking the boat attacks since they began in September 2025, tallied 63 boat strikes that had killed 207 people. The killings continue to draw attention from international human rights organisations. A statement by international NGO Amnesty International dated 28 May calls on the US congress and the foreign community to “take immediate action” to “stop the U.S. military’s unconscionable campaign of extrajudicial killings at sea and push for accountability”. It claims that the US administration’s “justifications for these air strikes have been shambolic”, adding that “White House officials have claimed, without presenting any evidence or even naming a single victim, that the targets are drug traffickers or ‘narco-terrorists’ with whom the U.S. is at war. But the U.S. is not engaged in any armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere which might justify these bombings, and the administration has yet to even say who the supposed ‘narco-terrorist’ groups are”.

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