President Donald Trump’s administration ended 2025 by driving up the death toll from its boat-bombing spree aimed at alleged drug smugglers, announcing US strikes on five more vessels that brought the total number of people killed to at least 115.

Legal experts and some members of Congress have condemned the dozens of deadly strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since September 2 as “war crimes, murder, or both,” but that hasn’t stopped the administration from dropping more bombs.

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said on social media Wednesday afternoon that the previous day, at the direction of US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted kinetic strikes against three narco-trafficking vessels traveling as a convoy,” which killed three people on the first boat.

“The remaining narco-terrorists abandoned the other two vessels, jumping overboard and distancing themselves before follow-on engagements sank their respective vessels,” added SOUTHCOM, which notified the US Coast Guard “to activate the search and rescue system.”

— (@)

The Trump administration has faced particular criticism for its first boat attack, in which the US military killed a pair of survivors of an initial strike who were clinging to debris. Since then, two other survivors have been captured by the United States and returned to their home countries, Colombia and Ecuador. In another case, Mexican authorities searched for but never found a survivor.

The Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe on Wednesday called out the “woeful gaps in disclosure in this new statement,” noting: “1) No details about where this occurred—not even a body of water. 2) It says a search and rescue effort was initiated, but includes no details about what has happened in the roughly 24 hours since. 3) How many survivors?”

Reuters correspondent Idrees Ali reported: “A US official tells me that eight people abandoned ship and are now being searched for. The Coast Guard says it is working with vessels in the area and a Coast Guard C-130 aircraft has been deployed to the Pacific to help in the search.”

Just hours after its first statement, SOUTHCOM said the task force “conducted a lethal kinetic strike” on two more boats Wednesday, killing “three in the first vessel and two in the second.”

— (@)

As with the earlier post, there was a video but SOUTHCOM declined to disclose the location. Venezuelanalysis responded on social media, “US authorities no longer bother to specify where they’re conducting the extrajudicial murders.”

Although the US Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to declare war, the Trump administration has argued that the strikes are justified because the United States is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, which the president has designated as terrorist organizations.

Despite lawmakers in both major parties rejecting that argument, both Republican-controlled chambers of Congress have so far failed to advance various war powers resolutions aimed at ending the boat bombings and reining in Trump’s march toward war with Venezuela—which he also attacked in December, according to Monday reporting.

After SOUTHCOM on Monday announced a Sunday boat strike that killed two people in the Pacific, Amnesty International USA declared on social media: “Once again, this is murder, plain and simple. Tell Congress to put a stop to it.”

---

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.