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AP Illustration \/ Peter Hamlin<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The United States military killed<\/span> three more people<\/a> on Friday in their 39th boat attack in six months, according to a tracker<\/a> maintained by the New York Times<\/em>. All told, the strikes by US forces have killed at least 133 people in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.\u00a0<\/p>\n President Donald Trump\u2019s administration has maintained, often without evidence, that they are targeting the boats as an anti-drug smuggling measure. Though, even if people on these boats were confirmed to be transporting drugs, a broad array of legal specialists have held that the \u201cstrikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings\u201d because the military \u201ccannot deliberately target civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence, even if they are suspected of engaging in criminal acts,\u201d the Times<\/em> reported<\/a> on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n An 11-second video of the Friday strike, posted<\/a> by US Southern Command, shows what appears to be a missile hitting a boat in open waters, with a caption claiming without further evidence that the three people killed were \u201cnarco-terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n The Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy organization, wrote<\/a> on Friday that those killed by the US military at sea \u201care denied any due process whatsoever,\u201d and that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth \u201care asserting and exercising an apparently unlimited license to kill people that the president deems to be terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n The boat attacks have been accompanied<\/a> by social media posts that include videos of the strikes, including by Hegseth<\/a> and Southern Command<\/a>. Multiple of the previous deaths came from a secondary attack on people who were alive after initial strikes, as confirmed by the White House.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t imagine anyone, no matter what the circumstance, believing it is appropriate to kill people who are clinging to a boat in the water,\u201d Michael Schmitt, a former Air Force lawyer and professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College, told the Associated Press<\/a> in December. \u201cThat is clearly unlawful.\u201d<\/p>\n Friday\u2019s strike follows increased US military operations in the region, including the administration\u2019s capture<\/a> of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in early January. According to Venezuela\u2019s Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino L\u00f3pez, US forces killed<\/a> 83 people during the Maduro operation, including multiple civilians<\/a>. Trump subsequently claimed that his administration will run<\/a> the country and control their oil<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cJust as the U.S. killings of those aboard targeted vessels are entirely premeditated and intentional,\u201d the Washington Office on Latin America wrote on Friday, \u201cthe ongoing attacks at sea appear designed to normalize killings at President Trump\u2019s discretion, both within the U.S. military chain of command and in the eyes of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n