By: Staff Writer
September 8, 2026
The Donald Trump administration’s military strikes against Venezuelan vessels suspected of drug trafficking has killed 200 people in 65 strikes overall since it started in September of 2025 a report from The Intercept states.
In all, the U.S. has conducted more than 65 attacks, resulting in over 225 civilians killed in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean in the last year. The most recent strike, in the Caribbean on August 25, killed four people.
A classified opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — drawn up by an interagency lawyers working group including representatives of the CIA, State Department, White House, Department of Justice, and Defense Department — claims that narcotics on supposed drug boats are lawful military targets because they generate revenue for cartels whom the Trump administration claims are engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with the United States. Attached to that secret memo is a similarly secret list of “designated terrorist organizations.”
A second government official who has reviewed the OLC opinion called it “flimsy yet expansive,” but said the Trump administration had “nonetheless managed to overstep” its bounds. The official said that despite being crafted to “excuse what is clearly murder,” the U.S. had killed people beyond those the OLC opinion claimed were legal targets.
U.S. Southern Command pushed back on the allegation. “Each operation is planned and executed within the full bounds of our legal framework,” said spokesperson Steven McLoud, “ensuring that every target meets the legal criteria established by our Office of Legal Counsel.”
Admiral Frank M. Bradley and his top legal adviser, Colonel Cara Hamaguchi, are said to have been behind the first strike, according to the outlet.
The two allegedly watched a live video of 11 men on a speedboat before SEAL Team 6 operators were ordered to sink the vessel. Two survivors drifted at sea for approximately 45 minutes before a second attack killed them, per The Intercept.
Military officials have called those killed and others accused of trafficking drugs “lawful military targets because they generate revenue for cartels whom the Trump administration claims are engaged in a ‘non-international armed conflict’ with the United States,” the outlet added.
Experts in the laws of war, as well as members of Congress from both parties, say the strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings because people are deliberately slain outside the law. The strikes may also constitute crimes against humanity, violating fundamental rights to life and due process. “There is no plausible legal justification for the strikes. They’re obviously not occurring in the context of an armed conflict and outside of armed conflict, the term for premeditated killing is murder,” Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer and specialist in counterterrorism issues and the laws of war, told The Intercept.