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WASHINGTON — <\/span>The U.S. military said Friday that it has carried out another deadly strike on a vessel<\/a> accused of trafficking drugs in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat \u201cwas transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.\u201d It said the strike killed three people. A video linked to the post shows a boat floating in the water before bursting into flames.<\/p>\n Friday\u2019s attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration\u2019s strikes on alleged drug boats to at least 148 people in at least 43 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in \u201carmed conflict\u201d with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks<\/a> as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing \u201cnarcoterrorists.\u201d <\/p>\n Critics have questioned the overall legality<\/a> of the strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico<\/a>, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.<\/p>\n The boat strikes also drew intense criticism<\/a> following the revelation that the military killed survivors of the very first boat attack with a follow-up strike. The Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers said it was legal and necessary, while Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said<\/a> the killings were murder, if not a war crime. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n