U.S. Eighth Pacific Strike; Campaign Deaths 34

The U.S. military carried out its eighth strike on an alleged drug‑smuggling vessel Tuesday night, the first known strike in the Pacific off South America, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced, releasing video showing a small boat laden with brown packages exploding and burning at sea. Officials said two people were killed (some reports put the number at two to three), bringing the death toll across the recent string of strikes to at least 34. The Trump administration has framed the campaign as part of a “non‑international armed conflict” with designated drug cartels, with Hegseth likening traffickers to Al Qaeda and invoking wartime legal authorities to justify lethal strikes. Two survivors from an earlier strike were repatriated to Ecuador and Colombia (Ecuador later released one man), and critics say the administration has returned survivors without prosecuting them. Colombian President Gustavo Petro and some U.S. lawmakers have sharply criticized the operations, questioning the evidence, legality, and transparency of the strikes, while reporting and officials differ on exact locations and casualty figures.