SOUTHCOM kills three in 69th Caribbean strike as the campaign's death toll passes 230 amid mounting legal criticism
On September 9, Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere carried out a lethal strike on a go-fast vessel that U.S. Southern Command said was moving drugs along an established Caribbean trafficking route, killing all three people aboard. It was the 69th publicly acknowledged strike in the year-old campaign — which independent tracking now puts at more than 230 people killed — and the third since the pace resumed in August following a roughly two-month pause that began in late June. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and independent United Nations experts have called the strikes unlawful extrajudicial killings, and four House Democrats — Reps. Gregory Meeks, Adam Smith, Jim Himes and Bennie Thompson — introduced a War Powers Resolution on September 2 seeking a vote to end them, an effort the Republican-controlled chambers have not brought to the floor.
