SOUTHCOM boards and sinks a fifth Los Choneros refueling vessel in a week, as the boat-strike campaign marks a contested first year
Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere forces boarded and sank a floating fuel depot in the eastern Pacific on September 7 that intelligence tied to Ecuador's Los Choneros gang — the fifth such refueling-vessel interdiction in under a week — and transferred the crew to Ecuadorian authorities rather than killing them. The boarding came as the wider campaign of lethal strikes on suspected smuggling boats reached its one-year mark, with independent tracking putting the toll at more than 75 vessels destroyed and at least 227 people killed. House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith marked the anniversary by calling the strikes unauthorized and unsupported by any evidence Congress has been shown, and four Democratic lawmakers introduced a War Powers Resolution on September 2 seeking to end them.
