#us-military-strikes

#us-military-strikes

WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump said Friday the U.S. military has carried out its third fatal strike against an alleged drug smuggling vessel this month. Trump in a social media posting said the strike killed three and was carried out against a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility. He did not provide more precise details about the location of the strike.

A Boeing C-17 Globemaster departs from José Aponte de la Torre Airport, formerly Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, on September 12, 2025, in Ceiba, Puerto Rico. The Trump administration recently carried out a drone strike in the southern Caribbean against a boat that had left Venezuela. Miguel J. Rodríguez Carrillo / Getty Images With 14 people killed in the Caribbean in recent days by US forces at the direction of President Donald Trump, two Democratic senators on Friday moved to stop the Trump administration from continuing military strikes against boats that it claims are involved in drug trafficking.

The Trump administration's justification for these strikes, such as it is, seems to be that any shipment of drugs connected to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a direct threat to the United States. These "narco-terrorists" may therefore be destroyed on sight, and without the fuss of asking permission from the U.S. Congress. This argument reflects the president's childlike but dangerous understanding of his role as commander in chief. The United States, once the leader of a global system of security and economic cooperation, is now acting like a rogue state on the high seas.

Monday, on social media, President Donald Trump announced that he had murdered three people—"three male terrorists killed in action" was how he put it. By "terrorists," the president meant nothing more than that he claimed the three people were smuggling drugs; by "in action," he meant that they were traveling in a boat in the Caribbean when a U.S. military aircraft hunted them down and killed them.

While Donald Trump claimed the strikes completely obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities, an early U.S. intelligence assessment contradicts this, suggesting limited success and that core components remain intact.