By News Americas Staff Writer
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. Sept. 21, 2026: The US military strikes in the Caribbean have now passed 231 killings, with the latest lethal strike on September 19th that killed four more people it described as “narco-terrorists,” according to U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
SOUTHCOM said Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed the strike on a “go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean,” adding that “confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking.” The military released video showing the vessel exploding into a fireball, according to Fox News.
The strike is the latest in a year-long campaign by the Trump administration targeting vessels it says are linked to cartel trafficking networks in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. SOUTHCOM said it carried out a separate strike on September 9th that killed three people. With Saturday’s operation, the campaign has now resulted in at least 231 deaths across at least 69 reported strikes over roughly the past year, per Fox News’ reporting on SOUTHCOM figures.
Many of the recent strikes highlighted by SOUTHCOM have targeted vessels the military says are tied to Los Choneros, which it describes as a violent “narco-terrorist” organization.
None of the individuals killed in these strikes have been publicly identified, and none were brought before a court. The campaign has drawn scrutiny from legal scholars and human rights organizations, who have raised due-process concerns about lethal strikes carried out against suspected traffickers without trial or independent verification of the intelligence involved – concerns the administration has not directly addressed in its public statements on the strikes.
The Caribbean has long served as a transit corridor for drug trafficking routes between South America and the United States, a reality that has shaped U.S. military posture and diplomatic relations across the region for decades.
“For a year now, the Trump administration has engaged in a terrifying, lawless killing campaign at sea and has yet to provide the public with anything beyond the most threadbare justifications,” said Jeff Stein, staff attorney with ACLU’s National Security Project on Sept. 2nd, the one-year anniversary of the Trump administration’s bombing campaign of private boats in international waters. “These strikes have devastated countless families, terrified communities, and, by the administration’s own admission, failed to achieve their purported goal of stopping drugs from entering into the United States. We urge leaders in both Congress and the executive branch to put an immediate end to these strikes before anyone else is killed.”
The ACLU has also called on international human rights bodies, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to investigate the strikes and hold the perpetrators accountable.
“The international community must do everything in its power to hold the Trump administration responsible for these extrajudicial killings that are blatant violations of international law,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of ACLU’s Human Rights Program. “No other country should provide any assistance that could contribute to these unlawful U.S. government killings. We call for independent international investigation into this lawless campaign.”
The Trump administration has claimed, without proof, that these military strikes are targeting unnamed drug cartels. But neither domestic nor international law authorizes the use of military force against such criminal organizations. The strikes are thus premediated killings of civilians outside of armed conflict, constituting murders under domestic law and extrajudicial killings under international human rights law. Nonetheless, a secret Trump administration legal memorandum reportedly blesses the strikes as lawful and purports to immunize personnel who authorized and carried out the strikes from future criminal prosecution. Along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (“CCR”) and the New York Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU is suing for the immediate release of this memorandum.
NewsAmericasNow will continue to track developments in this campaign as they affect the Caribbean region.
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