Newest killings confirmed as US officers reportedly maintain conferences to debate potential navy operations in Venezuela
Revealed On 15 Nov 2025
The USA navy has confirmed that 4 individuals have been killed in a strike on a ship in worldwide waters – the twentieth reported assault on vessels within the Caribbean and Pacific – as officers of President Donald Trump’s administration have been reported to have held conferences on potential navy operations in Venezuela.
In a submit on X on Friday, the US Southern Command stated the strike on Monday was authorised by US Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth and that the boat was “trafficking narcotics”, with out offering proof.
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Southern Command shared an accompanying video clip that confirmed an aerial view of the boat travelling within the Caribbean earlier than being struck and exploding in a ball of flames.
Worldwide legislation and human rights specialists have repeatedly stated that such assaults amount to extrajudicial executions, even when these focused are suspected of drug trafficking.
The Trump administration has ordered no less than 20 navy strikes in latest months towards suspected drug vessels within the Caribbean and off the Pacific coasts of Latin America, killing some 80 individuals.
‘Operation Southern Spear’
The Reuters information company reported on Saturday that senior Trump administration officers held three conferences on the White Home this week to debate choices for potential navy motion towards Venezuela, citing unnamed officers.
The reported conferences come because the Trump administration has continued to considerably broaden the US navy’s presence within the Latin America area, together with with F-35 plane, warships and a nuclear submarine.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon stated the Gerald R Ford Service Strike Group, which incorporates the world’s largest plane service, had arrived within the Caribbean with no less than 4,000 sailors and dozens of “tactical plane” on board.
In whole, there are actually about 12,000 US sailors and Marines within the area, in what Secretary Hegseth on Thursday formally named “Operation Southern Spear“.
Below the US Structure, Congress has the only energy to declare struggle.
However Trump has said that he wouldn’t “essentially ask for a declaration of struggle” as a way to proceed killing individuals “which might be bringing medication into our nation”.
A newly revealed Reuters/Ipsos ballot discovered that US navy escalation in South America just isn’t widespread with the US public.
Simply 29 % of these surveyed stated they supported the extrajudicial killings of suspected traffickers, and solely 21 % stated they supported navy intervention in Venezuela.
US navy buildup threatens ‘zone of peace’ in Latin America
Leaders from a number of Central and South American international locations have condemned the continuing US strikes and navy buildup within the area, saying it violates a 2014 settlement designating the realm as a “Zone of Peace”.
The Neighborhood of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a regional bloc of 33 international locations, signed the declaration in Havana, Cuba, in 2014. The US just isn’t a member.
Cuban Overseas Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla stated in a press release that the US deployment is “an act of provocation that threatens the self-determination of our peoples”, in line with Venezuela-based TV channel Telesur.
Brazilian chief Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Colombian chief Gustavo Petro have additionally criticised the US strikes.
In a nationwide broadcast last week, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro said the Trump administration was “fabricating a brand new everlasting struggle” within the area.
Maduro stated his nation, which has been struggling economically beneath US sanctions, has ready what he known as a “massive deployment” of forces in case of a US assault.
