The US has killed two people in a so-called ‘narco’ boat strike, bringing the total since September to 223. These strikes followreports alleging that the CIA and/or its contractors attacked three vessels near the Galapagos in March and January 2026.
The US military’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) posted a section of a video showing the strike on X:
“This operation is a clear and decisive reminder that SOUTHCOM is taking the fight directly to the cartels.”
On August 23, under #SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan’s direction, Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal kinetic strike on a low-profile vessel… pic.twitter.com/aIw1qn36gd
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) August 24, 2026
This was the first strike for some time. in response to these developments,New York Times reported that:
Southern Command did not explain the two-month lull in strikes since an attack on a boat in the Caribbean killed eight people on June 21. Military officials have attributed the pause at least in part to planes and other equipment being diverted to help victims of the recent earthquake in Venezuela.
On 3 January, after an intense military build up in the region, US Special Forces kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. At-sea strikes began in September 2025 but continued after the Caracas raid and are ongoing.
The Trump regime has made clear it wants to exert fuller control of the Americas, building close alliances with right-wing dictators in Latin America, threatening Cuba, Canada and Greenland.
US Homeland Empire
As the Canary has repeatedly reported, Trump has merged the War on Terror process, the War on Drugs, and far-right ideology:
The new right-wing narratives of illegal migration and drug trafficking have merged with the climate of militarism, ‘counter-terrorism’ and colonial policing forged during the War on Terror. Trump has been able to tie these together to wage a war against the exploited, the racialised and the desperate.
The US president has conflated:
immigrants, drugs and free trade as sources of weakness coming from outside, “poisoning the blood of our country”.
the archaic geopolitics of a settler empire to the modern legal frameworks devised by his liberal predecessors.
International legal NGO Just Security noted:
As shared on social media and accompanied by video, U.S. SOUTHCOM announced a strike, conducted by Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, on a vessel with “active involvement in narco-trafficking” in the eastern Pacific, killing two. The strike was executed at the direction of SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan.
This is the first publicly announced strike on a vessel under the Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere.
Unlike most recent SOUTHCOM posts announcing strikes against vessels suspected of trafficking narcotics, this announcement did not state that the vessel was “operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations.”
The US is currently locked into a failed war with Iran. When that war ends Trump’s sights will return fully to the Americas. And the losers, as ever, will likely be the people of the region.
Featured image via the US Southern Command / Canary
By Joe Glenton
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