The U.S. military strike that killed 11 people on a boat in the Caribbean on Sept. 2 is an act of murder and a violation of international law, experts say.
Still photo of White House video boasting of U.S. bombing that killed 11 people, Sept. 2, 2025. (Still shot of WH video on X)
By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Truthout
Experts are condemning the U.S. military strike that killed 11 people on a boat in the Caribbean last Tuesday, saying that the bombing was in violation of international law.
The Trump administration has claimed — without providing evidence — that the casualties of the strike were members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-based gang that it has designated a foreign terrorist organization.
“Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, following the attack.
“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”
The White House posted an image on social media of Trump looking at a phone showing footage of the boat being hit. “TERRORISTS ELIMINATED. ADIÓS,” the post says, with an emoji of a person placing items in the trash.
In another post, the White House said: “ON VIDEO: U.S. Military Forces conducted a strike against Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists. The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in international waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the U.S. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action.”
The Trump administration has circulated a brief black and white video that it says shows the fatal strike. AP reports that the White House “did not immediately explain how the military determined that those aboard the vessel were Tren de Aragua members.”
The outlet also noted that the video “is not clear enough to see if the craft is carrying as many as 11 people” and “did not show any large or clear stashes of drugs inside the boat.”
“Labeling someone a terrorist and deploying the military does not make them a military target,” Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement to Truthout. “These actions amount to an extra-judicial killing, a violation of international law, which should raise extraordinary concerns.”
“Using military forces to kill alleged drug traffickers is an act of murder, not war.”
“Without clear limitations on presidential and military authority, we may find this administration claiming that it can execute alleged drug dealers at home without any judicial process as happened under the Duterte regime in the Philippines,” Warren continued.
Former president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte is now at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, accused of committing crimes against humanity, including rape, murder, and torture, in the context of the government’s so-called “war on drugs” campaign.
“Using military forces to kill alleged drug traffickers is an act of murder, not war,” Wells Dixon, a senior attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, told Truthout in a statement following the attack on Tuesday.
Civil rights attorney Alec Karakatsanis called the killings “extra-judicial assassinations — a preemptive death penalty with no process — for vague alleged nonviolent drug distribution offenses.”
Venezuela President Maduro warning of U.S. quest for “regime change,” September 2025 (X Screenshot)
Trump has a long history of calling for U.S. intervention to overthrow Venezuela’s government and has escalated tensions in recent days by building up the U.S. military’s presence near the country. The Trump administration has also frequently accused people of belonging to Tren de Aragua to justify violations of their human rights.
Shortly after taking office, Trump signed an executive order declaring Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization and subsequently invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to send more than 250 Venezuelans living in the United States to El Salvador’s notoriously brutal prison, CECOT.
The administration repeatedly accused the men of being Tren de Aragua members, despite the fact that a majority did not have criminal convictions.
After four months, they were sent home to Venezuela in a prisoner swap deal between Venezuela and the United States. The men, including a soccer coach, a makeup artist, and a musician, have reported that they were physically and psychologically tortured at the prison.
On September 2, an appeals court ruled that the Trump administration could not use the 18th century-era law to expedite removals of people it accused of being Tren de Aragua members. Before Trump, the law had been used just three times in American history — during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II. It was last invoked to justify the internment of thousands of people with Japanese ancestry during World War II.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg is a reporter based in New Jersey. Follow her on Twitter: @elizabethweill.
This article was first published by Truthout.
The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
US Warships playing tag with a boat, and blasting it and all in it – possibly some contraband, and 11 human beings to smithereens, because we can still get away with committing international atrocity.
A shining example of Americas naval prowess; as if international relations are nothing more than a game.
Heil to the Chief!
The boat attack has nothing at all to do with the interdiction and curtailment of the flow of contraband drugs in the international, clandestine, and illicit drugs trade arena?
Sending a naval armada after a single boat, hardly more than a dugout with supercharged outboard motors attached, makes a mockery of the US navy.
These extrajudicial killings are yet another preparatory setup, as was the US sideshow of attempting to find weapons of mass destruction; knowing full well there were none, in Iraq, prior to the 2003 US invasion.
As for Iraq, the intent was to gain control of ‘our’ oil.
So too for Venezuela, where the prize is even greater, with their natural resources being much more extensive; with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, significant deposits of natural gas, iron ore, bauxite, gold, and diamonds.
And to nudge this show forward, a domestic bait set to get the ball rolling, a bounty of $50,000,000 on the head of its democratically elected President.
What could be a more obvious pretext for intervention than US elites’, narcissistic, plutocratic greed?
Journalist Gary Webb reported on the CIA involvement in drug trafficking and ended up dead with two gunshot wounds to the head that was called a suicide.
Paula for your edification.
Two shots from a 38 cal. revolver. Not impossible but very unlikely. I figure his widowed wife with 3 children got the message. L.A. was a very dangerous place at the time. Webb had made some serious enemies. The reason, he knew what he was talking and writing about.
So did Marine fighter pilot Col. James E. Sabow. http://www.latimes/1994-05-11
“3rd Probe of El Toro officers death begun: Marines: Col. James E. Sabow’s family, under new legislation, pushes ti prove he was slain in 1991 – ruling suicide.”
The base, the Marine naval Air Station located in Orange County, southern California. Interesting place. (Lee Harvey Oswald served this base.). As the story goes, Col. Sabow had observed strange air and truck traffic on and off the base. Unmarked -(unidentified), large jet cargo aircraft were observed landing and parking at large hanger located remotely on the base, and off loaded onto trucks.
His mistake was talking about this officially which caused him professional difficulties with his superiors.
The significance of which dovetails neatly with the huge amounts of cocaine flooding the west coast. Enter Highway Rick Ross anf Blandon. Not the rapper who stole his name, but the king of crack cocaine on the west coast and the country.
Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (.gov). hXXps://org.gov > default > archive > special
CIA-Contra Crack Cocaine Controversy. – “Lastly the Mercury News series asserted Ross and Blandon’s network . . . .
Webb was right he knew exactly what he was talking about and he was killed because of it. Ever hear of Crossing the Rubicon: Decline of the American Empire by the late author Micheal Ruppert ? (1951-April 13, 2014 died by, you guessed it suicide.) He met with the drug czar when enough hell was raise to get him out there in LA. Webb knew Micheal was a retired LA Police narcotics investigator.
Marine Col. Sabow death by suicide,, 1939 – Jan. 22, 1991, Danny Casolaro death by suicide June 10, 1947 – August 10, 1991, Gary Webb death by suicide, Aug. 31, 1955 – Dec. 1o, 2004, Micheal Ruppert death by suicide, Feb. 3, 1951 – April 13, 2014!.
The drug kingpin “Freeway” Rick Ross was the only man sentenced to life to ever get paroled from prison, but found drug trouble again.
A little off topic maybe but one helluva story when you consider Webb knew Danny Casolaro. Casolaro, who was found dead in his motel bath tub. Ruled suicide all his papers went missing. His wrists were damaged by slashes so deep the damage rendered him impossible of slashing both of his wrists. After the first wrist was damaged he would not have been physically able to cut the other wrist!
Casolaro was investigating the theft of William Hamilton’s PROMIS software, which was stolen by the U.S. Government.
Paula, I’m just saying!
Waiting for families and relatives to confirm the loss of life before believing this is real !
We nay even have preemptive presumptive law enforcement secret strikes here if someone thinks they know what we are thinking just because of something in our DNA or brain scan of mental activity. The new world order of drones and groans strikes gone wild for new innovations for profit motives..
1) when have the US of A ever bothered abt. int’l. law
[… except in cases where it was to their advantage]?
2) didn’t now #47 state in 2016 that he could “stand in
the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody” and
“… not lose any voters”?
to cite THIS as proof of his voters’ loyalty is not just
super-strange. i think it indicates how far he was/is
really willing to go when it comes to reaching aims.
and he has surrounded himself with men who seem
to feel nothing but contempt, disgust and hatred for
non-white people on earth.
didn’t #47’s senior advisor stephen miller, not too long ago,
muse abt. the consequences it might have for the US if they
predator-droned, i.e. obliterated, a boat full of migrants in
int’l. waters?
[who’ll] stop the impunity and the lawlessness already!
There are families without their fathers and sons today because of this callous political show.
When do the Venezuelans get to bomb the Sackler’s house?
Here is some historical context on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) connections to the emergence of “Cartel de los Soles” (elements of the Venezuelan military and government under indictment by the Trump DoJ to create a potential casus belli for intensified regime change efforts against Venezuela) in the neoliberal era prior to the Chávez and Maduro presidencies, reported on by prominent media such as “60 Minutes” at the time (“The CIA’s Cocaine,” CBS News, Nov. 21, 1993):
“On November 22, 1996, the US Justice Department indicted General Ramón Guillén Davila of Venezuela [originator of ‘Cartel de los Soles’ – see “Cartel of the Suns,” InSight Crime, ] on charges of importing cocaine into the United States. […] The CIA had hired Guillén in 1988 to help it find out something about the Colombian drug cartels. The Agency and Guillén set up a drug-smuggling operation using agents of Guillén’s in the Venezuelan National Guard to buy cocaine from the Calí cartel and ship it to Venezuela, where it was stored in warehouses maintained by the Narcotics Intelligence Center, Caracas, which was run by Guillén and entirely funded by the CIA. […] Over the next three years, more than 22 tons of cocaine made its way through this pipeline into the US, with the shipments coming into Miami either in hollowed-out shipping pallets or in boxes of blue jeans. In 1990 DEA agents in Caracas learned what was going on, but security was lax since one female DEA agent in Venezuela was sleeping with a CIA man there, and another, reportedly with General Guillén himself. The CIA and Guillén duly changed their modes of operation, and the cocaine shipments from Caracas to Miami continued for another two years. Eventually, the US Customs Service brought down the curtain on the operation, and in 1992 seized an 800-pound shipment of cocaine in Miami. […] The CIA conducted an internal review of this debacle and asserted that there was ‘no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.’ A DEA investigation reached a rather different conclusion, charging that the spy agency had engaged in ‘unauthorized controlled shipments’ of narcotics into the US and that the CIA withheld ‘vital information’ on the Calí cartel from the DEA and federal prosecutors.”
Source:
Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn, “Meet the CIA: Guns, Drugs, and Money,” CounterPunch, Jan. 26, 2018