Click to expand Image Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to brief senators at the US Capitol, Washington DC, January 7, 2026. © 2026 Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Photo (Washington, DC) — The United States’ latest strike on a vessel in the Caribbean, which reportedly killed four people, highlights a sustained pattern of unlawful use of lethal force outside any context of armed conflict, amounting to extrajudicial executions, Human Rights Watch said today.The US Southern Command announced on March 25, 2026, that it had carried out a “lethal kinetic strike” against a boat it said was involved in drug trafficking. The strike is the 47th in a series of lethal strikes by the US military in the Caribbean and Pacific oceans, resulting in a total of 163 people killed. “These strikes aren’t one-off incidents, they’re part of a pattern of using military force where the law does not permit it, over and over again,” said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “The fact that these strikes have faded from public attention does not make these violations any less grave or unlawful.”International law draws a clear line between armed conflict and law enforcement. There is no armed conflict in the Caribbean or Pacific between the US and any drug-trafficking organization, and so there is no group of people who are a legitimate military target. Outside of armed conflict, the deliberate, lethal use of force is only lawful when strictly necessary to protect life. Suspected criminals are not otherwise lawful targets for these deliberately lethal US strikes, and no information has been released to the public showing that any of the people targeted and killed posed an imminent threat to the life of any person.The US government should immediately end this campaign of lethal strikes, Human Rights Watch said. It should also ensure accountability for these unlawful killings, properly assess the harm caused to victims and their families, and provide redress for that harm. If the Trump administration continues to avoid taking responsibility for these unlawful killings, Congress should ensure independent investigations and accountability.“When unlawful force is repeated over time, it risks becoming normalized,” Yager said. “That’s dangerous because it opens the door to using lethal force whenever and wherever a government wishes and without constraints.”