Legal experts says US attacks amount to extrajudicial killings even if those targeted are suspected of drug trafficking.

The United States has killed two people in another strike on a vessel in the Pacific, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said, bringing to at least 67 the number of people killed in US attacks on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific since early September.

In a post on social media late on Tuesday, Hegseth alleged that the latest vessel attacked was involved in “illicit narcotics smuggling”, though legal experts have said that such attacks amount to extrajudicial killings, even if those targeted are suspected of drug trafficking.

Describing the vessel as “transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics”, Hegseth said US forces attacked it in “international waters in the Eastern Pacific” on the orders of US President Donald Trump.

Hegseth did not provide any evidence of drug trafficking, while a short aerial video of the attack showed what appeared to be a vessel stationary in the water before being hit by a missile and exploding in smoke and flames.

The US military blanked out the video so that the vessel’s occupants could not be seen.

“We will find and terminate EVERY vessel with the intention of trafficking drugs to America to poison our citizens. Protecting the homeland is our TOP priority,” Hegseth said in a post on X alongside the video.

US military strikes since early September have now targeted at least 17 vessels – 16 boats and a semi-submersible – but the Trump administration has yet to make public any evidence that its targets were smuggling narcotics or posed any threat to the US.

While both Republican and Democratic Party lawmakers have demanded clarity on the legal basis for the US to carry out such attacks in international waters, governments and victims’ families in Latin America have decried the strikes and accused Washington of killing mostly fishermen.

Last week, United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk called for the US to halt its attacks to “prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats”.

The announcement of the latest killings comes as the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier heads towards the Caribbean to join a US military build-up in Latin America, which Washington has mobilised to target so-called drug cartels targeting the US.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who Washington says is involved in drug trafficking, has accused the US of using its latest iteration of the “war on drugs” as a pretext to topple him from power.

During an interview that aired on Sunday on the US’s CBS channel, Trump was asked if Maduro’s days as president were numbered.

“I would say, yeah. I think so, yeah,” the president said.

But he did not answer a question on whether he would order strikes inside Venezuela.

Trump has previously threatened to attack targets on land related to the drug trade in what would be a serious escalation of US military intervention in Latin America.