Video footage that began to circulate online Sunday shows what appears to be a U.S. Tomahawk missile striking in the vicinity of an elementary school next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval complex, according to eight munitions experts. The video, which was verified by The Washington Post, is the latest indication of likely U.S. involvement in the attack on Feb. 28 that killed dozens of children in the southern Iranian city of Minab.
The US armed forces have for months been carrying out lethal strikes against vessels it says were engaged in drug smuggling in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. Now, the families of two men killed in one of those strikes are suing the US government for damages. Two family members of Trinidadian nationals said to have been killed in a US boat strike in the Caribbean have accused the federal government of engaging in "unlawful" activity.
The lawsuit, shared in advance with the Guardian, says that Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, both of Las Cuevas, Trinidad, were returning to Trinidad from Venezuela when they and four other people were killed in the strike. It was the fifth attack announced by the White House under Donald Trump's campaign against the small go-fast boats the administration claims are connected to cartels and gangs.
Speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday, Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, said Tehran would not permit inspections of facilities struck by the US until the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) establishes a clear framework for such visits, according to Iran's semiofficial Tasnim news agency. If there are established procedures for the post-war situation, the agency should announce them so that we can act accordingly, Eslami said.
Venezuela has told the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that the United States has continental ambitions over much of Latin America as it wages an unofficial war to remove the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. It's not just about Venezuela. The ambition is continental, Venezuela's UN ambassador, Samuel Moncada, told a meeting of the 15-member UNSC on Tuesday. The US government has expressed this in its National Security Strategy, which states that the future of the continent belongs to them, Moncada said.
On September 2, United States President Donald Trump released grainy footage of a missile obliterating a fishing boat off Venezuela's coast. Eleven people died instantly. The administration called them narcoterrorists. Venezuelan sources identified them as fishermen. Since then, the US military has conducted at least 22 strikes, killing 87 people, with investigations revealing that the first attack included a second strike to kill two survivors clinging to wreckage a potential war crime under international law.
If you're working for a designated terrorist organization and you bring drugs to this country in a boat, we will find you and we will sink you. Let there be no doubt about it, Hegseth said during his keynote address at the Reagan National Defense Forum. President Trump can and will take decisive military action as he sees fit to defend our nation's interests. Let no country on earth doubt that for a moment.
The paper reported that US forces hit the targeted boat once, then hit it again the second strike killing two survivors clinging to the wreckage. According to the Post, the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, had issued a verbal command to kill them all. Now that incident is under congressional scrutiny, with even some Republicans uneasy about what appears to be a clearcut case of a war crime.
The petition from the family of Alejandro Carranza says the military bombed his fishing boat on Sept. 15, when he was sailing off Colombia's Caribbean coast, in violation of human rights conventions. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights received the complaint Tuesday, and while the Trump administration has said it supports the commission's work, the U.S. does not recognize the jurisdiction of an international court associated with the commission.
Franklin the Turtle is a beloved Canadian icon who has inspired generations of children and stands for kindness, empathy and inclusivity, the publishing house Kids Can Press said in a statement Monday night. We strongly condemn any denigrating, violent or unauthorized use of Franklin's name or image, which directly contradicts these values. The statement comes after Hegseth posted a doctored book cover on X showing Franklin dressed for war and firing rocket-propelled grenades from a helicopter at boats below.
This month saw another deadly U.S. military strike on a civilian vessel, suspected of drug trafficking, in international waters. As these strikes have escalated, questions have only increased around their lawfulness. At the same time, President Donald Trump last week accused Democratic lawmakers of "treason" for producing a viral video noting that members of the military must remain vigilant in the face of potentially unlawful orders from the commander in chief.
