SOUTHCOM said U.S. forces recently struck and destroyed three small vessels in international waters of the eastern Pacific, releasing aerial video they say shows missiles or rockets hitting the craft and killing eight people overall.Kingsley Wilson and other officials defended the operations as lawful under both U.S. and international law, saying a classified DOJ finding and earlier policy decisions support treating the targets as unlawful combatants and allowing lethal strikes without judicial review.Legal scholars, Human Rights Watch and U.N. human rights experts have disputed that legal rationale, demanded public evidence linking the boats to narcotics trafficking, and warned that alleged follow-up strikes that killed survivors could, if verified, amount to war crimes and intensify oversight and congressional scrutiny.