Muhammad Asim Saddiqi 
Islamabad: According to US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the US has attacked an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean, killing 03 people. The attack was carried out in international waters.
According to a report by the news agency AFP, US has deployed ships to the Caribbean and sent F-35 stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico under the claim of an operation against drug trafficking, which Washington says is part of a wider military operation to stop drug shipments.
In recent weeks, the number of US attacks on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific has exceeded 15, in which at least 65 people have been killed and these attacks have been strongly criticized by several governments in the region.
Pete Hegseth wrote on social media that ‘this attack was carried out on another drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean’.
He also said, “According to our intelligence, this boat, like all other boats, was involved in illegal drug trafficking. It had three ‘narco-terrorists’ on board, who were killed in the attack.”
Experts say that these attacks, which began in early September, are actually tantamount to extrajudicial killings, even if their targets are alleged smugglers, because the United States has not yet presented any evidence that the passengers on these boats were actually smuggling drugs or posing any threat to the United States.
