The United States has conducted an eighth military strike on a vessel alleged to be carrying illicit drugs across international waters.

But for the first time, the boat in question was not in the Caribbean Sea but instead in the Pacific Ocean.

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US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the strike on social media Wednesday, saying it took place a day prior.

“Yesterday, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific,” Hegseth wrote.

“There were two narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters. Both terrorists were killed.”

A video accompanying Hegseth’s post shows a missile striking a small blue boat clipping across the water, which subsequently erupts in flames.

The latest strike opens a new front in US President Donald Trump’s growing military campaign against Latin American cartels, fuelling questions about the limits and legality of his actions.

Still, the Trump administration has justified the deadly bombing campaign as necessary to protect US citizens from illicit drugs.

It has sought to frame drug traffickers as enemy combatants, a theme Hegseth reprised in Wednesday’s statement, where he compared the boat’s occupants to the armed group al-Qaeda.

“Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people. There will be no refuge or forgiveness—only justice,” Hegseth wrote.

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But critics have pointed out that the attacks are likely to have violated US and international law, which generally prohibits extrajudicial killings outside of combat.

Labelling someone a “terrorist” is also not sufficient to justify an attack on a non-state actor.

“There’s a world of difference between these (alleged) unspecified narcos and al Qaeda,” Brian Finucane, a researcher with the International Crisis Group nonprofit, posted on social media.

“No armed attack on U.S. like 9/11. No armed conflict. Just the U.S. government engaged in lawless premeditated killing.”

A timeline of air strikes

CBS News was the first to report the air strike on Wednesday, citing anonymous US officials. Tuesday’s attack brings the confirmed death toll from Trump’s bombing campaign to 34, according to government statements.

The air strikes began on September 2, when Trump announced on his social media account that he had ordered “a kinetic strike” that morning on a small boat travelling through international waters.

Eleven people — whom Trump identified as “terrorists” — were killed in the attack. Their identities were not disclosed, nor was any evidence provided about their destination or cargo.

“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” Trump said, accusing the boat’s passengers, without proof, of being linked to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

More attacks followed. On September 15, another strike occurred in the Caribbean, killing three people. Then a third strike took place on September 19, also killing three.

The bombing campaign spilled over into the following month. On October 3, Hegseth announced a new strike had claimed the lives of four people. Six more people were killed on October 14.

The seventh known strike, however, was a departure from the Trump administration’s routine for announcing attacks.

Generally, Trump and his associates had been among the first to reveal the attacks, sharing them on social media paired with grainy aerial footage.

But on October 16, US media broke the news that a strike had taken place — and that there were two survivors, a first. The Trump administration confirmed the attack a day later.

The survivors were quickly repatriated to their home countries, Ecuador and Colombia. Ecuador has since released its survivor, saying there was no evidence he was involved in a crime.

But Trump doubled down, describing the men as riding in what he called “a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE”. Two additional people, he confirmed, were killed in the attack.

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A seventh strike came shortly thereafter, on October 17. This time, however, the three people killed on the boat were identified as members of the National Liberation Army (ELN), a Colombian rebel group.

Previous ships had been largely tied to Venezuela, whose president, Nicolas Maduro, has long had an adversarial relationship with Trump.

Both Venezuela and the US have increased their military presence along the Caribbean since the attacks began.

Questions about legal justification

The string of attacks is the culmination of months in which Trump suggested he was willing to take aggressive action to stem the flow of illicit drugs.

He has also tied his campaign against drug trafficking to the Maduro administration, blaming the Venezuelan leader for masterminding efforts by the Tren de Aragua gang.

There is, however, no proof that Maduro is involved with Tren de Aragua or its illicit drug trade.

Rather, in May, a declassified memo revealed that the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence found no evidence that Maduro is directing the gang, appearing to contradict Trump.

Still, Trump has used the alleged ties between Maduro and Tren de Aragua to justify his use of wartime laws, including the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The US, Trump has repeatedly argued, faces an “invasion” of Latin American criminals, though courts have largely rejected that rationale.

Nonetheless, Trump’s apparent willingness to take military action abroad has stirred concerns throughout Latin America.

Upon taking office on January 20, Trump issued an executive order calling on his officials to label drug cartels “foreign terrorist organisations”, a designation traditionally used to label foreign actors who seek to destabilise the US.

Then, in August, Trump reportedly signed a secret order calling on the US armed forces to begin using military force against the cartels.

News of that order led Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to quell concerns about a possible strike on her country’s soil. “The United States is not going to come to Mexico with their military,” she told reporters that month.

Still, Trump has leaned into the possibility that he may pursue land-based operations.

“A lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea,” he told reporters in the Oval Office this month. “But we’re going to stop them by land also.”

He also confirmed that he had authorised the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to begin covert operations in Venezuela.

A memo Trump reportedly sent to Congress justified the recent slate of attacks by asserting the alleged drug traffickers were “unlawful combatants” in an “non-international armed conflict”.

The repeated strikes on nautical vessels, however, have raised questions about the motives and efficacy of the attacks.

The US government itself has acknowledged that most illicit drugs arrive in the US by land, particularly at ports of entry along the border with Mexico.

The lack of information about the boat strikes has also fuelled speculation about the identities of those aboard and whether they were involved in any illicit activity at all.

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In Trinidad and Tobago, one family has asserted that their loved one, a fisherman, was killed in one of the missile strikes. In Colombia, President Gustavo Petro likewise has claimed that a citizen, Alejandro Carranza, was among the dead.

“Fisherman Alejandro Carranza had no ties to drug trafficking and his daily activity was fishing,” Petro wrote on social media this month.

He demanded an explanation from the US government and said, “US government officials have committed murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters.”