...Initially, a Honduran official told reporters that two traffickers were believed to have been killed in the gunbattle. But local leaders offered a conflicting account, saying that the helicopter had pursued a boat with traffickers but mistakenly opened fire on a different boat carrying people who were out fishing. They said four people were killed, including two pregnant women.

The US official briefed on the matter expressed doubts that villagers would be out fishing in the middle of the night, near where helicopters carrying armed police had landed nearly an hour earlier. The large number of people unloading the plane in the video, the official said, was evidence that many members of the impoverished community of Ahuas were involved in lucrative narcotics trafficking.

“There is nothing in the local village that was unknown, a surprise, or a mystery about this,’’ the official said. “What happened was that, for the first time in the history of Ahuas, Honduran law enforcement interfered with narcotics smuggling.’’

But that explanation is unlikely to calm angry villagers in the region. Leaders of the Masta, Diunat, Rayaka, Batiasta, and Bamiasta ethnic groups said in a statement that “the people in that canoe were fishermen, not drug traffickers.’’

“For centuries we have been a peaceful people who live in harmony with nature, but today we declared these Americans to be persona non grata in our territory,’’ the statement continued....