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CNN: Was fatal US strike on Venezuelan ‘drug boat’ legal?

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A strike carried out by US forces on a boat in the Caribbean Sea – which the White House says killed 11 drug traffickers – may have violated international human rights and maritime law, legal experts have told BBC Verify.

President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that US forces destroyed a vessel which he said had departed from Venezuela. He said the boat was operated by the Tren de Aragua cartel and was carrying drugs bound for the US.

US defence officials have so far declined to offer details on the strike, footage of which Trump shared on Truth Social, including what legal authority they relied upon to justify it.

BBC Verify reached out to a range of experts in international and maritime law, with several saying that US may have acted illegally in attacking the vessel.

The US is not a signatory to United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the US military’s legal advisors have previously said that the US should “act in a manner consistent with its provisions”.

Under the convention, countries agree not to interfere with vessels operating in international waters. There are limited exceptions to this which allow a state to seize a ship, such as a “hot pursuit” where a vessel is chased from a country’s waters into the high seas.

“Force can be used to stop a boat but generally this should be non-lethal measures,” Prof Luke Moffett of Queens University Belfast said.

But he added that the use of aggressive tactics must be “reasonable and necessary in self-defence where there is immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life to enforcement officials”, noting that the US moves were likely “unlawful under the law of the sea”.

Are US strikes on alleged cartel members legal?

Experts have also questioned whether the killing of the alleged members of the Tren de Aragua cartel could contravene international law on the use of force.

Under Article 2(4) of the UN charter, countries can resort to force when under attack and deploying their military in self-defence. Trump has previously accused the Tren de Aragua cartel of conducting irregular warfare against the US, and the state department has designated the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation.

But Prof Michael Becker of Trinity College Dublin told BBC Verify that the US actions “stretches the meaning of the term beyond its breaking point”.

“The fact that US officials describe the individuals killed by the US strike as narco-terrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets,” he said. “The US is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua criminal organization.”

“Not only does the strike appear to have violated the prohibition on the use of force, it also runs afoul of the right to life under international human rights law.”

Prof Moffett said that the use of force in this case could amount to an “extrajudicial arbitrary killing” and “a fundamental violation of human rights”.

“Labelling everyone a terrorist does not make them a lawful target and enables states to side-step international law,” he said.

Notre Dame Law School Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell told BBC Verify that the strike “violated fundamental principles of international law”, adding: “Intentional killing outside armed conflict hostilities is unlawful unless it is to save a life immediately.”

“Sometimes armed groups waging war against governments deal in drugs to pay for their participation in conflict. There is no evidence the gang President Trump targeted is such a group.”

But US officials have been quick to defend the strike. Republican Senator Lindsay Graham wrote on X that the strike was the “ultimate – and most welcome – sign that we have a new sheriff in town”.

His fellow Republican senator, Bernie Moreno from Ohio, wrote: “Sinking this boat saved American lives. To the narco traffickers and the narco dictators, you’ll eventually get the same treatment.”

A White House official told BBC Verify that Trump had authorised the strike on the boat, which they said was crewed by Tren de Aragua members, after it left Venezuela. The official added that the president was committed to using all means to prevent drugs reaching the US.

The Pentagon has declined to share the legal advice it obtained before carrying out the strike.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News: “we’ve got incredible assets and they are gathering in the region… those 11 drug traffickers are no longer with us, sending a very clear signal that this is an activity the United States is not going to tolerate in our hemisphere.”

Can Trump launch attacks without Congressional approval?

Questions have also been raised as to whether the White House complied with US law in authorising the strike. The US constitution says that only Congress has the power to declare war.

However, Article II – which lays out the president’s powers – says that “the president shall be Commander in Chief of the Army” and some constitutional experts have suggested that this grants the president the power to authorise strikes against military targets. Trump administration sources have previously cited this provision when defending US strikes on Iran.

But it is unclear whether that provision extends to the use of force against non-state actors such as drug cartels.

Rumen Cholakov, an expert in US constiutional law at King’s College London told BBC Verify that since 9/11, US presidents have relied on the 2001 Authorization of Use of Military Force Act (AUMF) when carrying out strikes against groups responsible for the attacks.

“Its scope has been expanded consistently in subsequent administrations,” he added. “It is not immediately obvious that drug cartels such as Tren de Aragua would be within the President’s AUMF powers, but that might be what “narco-terrorists” is hinting at.”

Questions also remain as to whether Trump complied with the War Powers Resolution, which demands that the president “in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities”.

How did the US conduct the strike?

It is unclear what method the US used to launch the attack. Trump did not offer details in his news conference in the Oval Office and the Department of Defense has failed to offer further information.

In Venezuela President Maduro has yet to respond to the US strikes, but his Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez has suggested that the footage released by the White House may have been generated using AI. In a post to X, he suggested that water in the video “looks very stylized and unnatural”.

BBC Verify has run the clip through SynthID – Google’s AI detection software – and found no evidence that the footage is fake.

The strikes come amid reports that the US has deployed several naval warships to the region in support of anti-narcotics operations against Venezuela.

We’ve not been able to track all of these vessels. But using information from publicly-available onboard trackers, and videos on social media, we’ve potentially identified four of them in the region.

A ship identifying itself as the USS Lake Erie – a guided missile cruiser – last transmitted its location in the Caribbean Sea on 30 August, east of the Panama Canal on 30 August.

Two others identifying themselves as the USS Gravely and USS Jason Dunham last transmitted their locations in mid-August, at the American base in Guantanamo Bay. A fourth, the USS Fort Lauderdale, transmitted its location north of the Dominican Republic on 28 August.

Trump – who has long sought to oust Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro – has authorised a US$50m reward for any information leading to his arrest. The Venezuelan leader claimed victory in last year’s elections, widely viewed as rigged by international observers.

The consensus seems to be that it was illegal. Only Trump’s merry band of misfits, suck-ups, and sycophants seems to think otherwise.

US strike on ‘Venezuela drug boat’: What do we know, and was it legal?
Experts suggest the strike – which killed 11 alleged cartel members – may be illegal under international law.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdjzw3gplv7o

CBS News: Trump says the U.S. military destroyed a boat operated by Tren de Aragua off Venezuela. Here’s what to know about the gang.

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The deadly U.S. military strike in the Caribbean this week on a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela is the latest measure President Trump has taken to combat the threat he sees from the Tren de Aragua gang.

The White House has offered few details on Tuesday’s attack and insists the 11 people aboard were members of the gang. The criminal organization, which traces its roots to a Venezuelan prison, is not known for having a big role in global drug trafficking but for its involvement in contract killings, extortions and human smuggling.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned Wednesday that the United States will keep assets positioned in the Caribbean and strike anyone “trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco terrorist.”

U.S. officials have yet to explain how the military determined that those aboard the vessel were Tren de Aragua members. The strike represents a paradigm shift in how the U.S. is willing to combat drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere and appears to send a combative message to governments in the region as well as drug traffickers.

Tren de Aragua operations spread beyond Venezuela

Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent years, recruiting from among the more than 7.7 million Venezuelans who have fled economic turmoil in their homeland and migrated to other Latin American countries or the U.S.

Mr. Trump and administration officials have consistently blamed the gang for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some U.S. cities. Mr. Trump has repeated his claim — contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment — that Tren de Aragua is operating under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s control.

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump described Aurora, Colorado, as a “war zone” overrun with members of the gang. Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain rejected that characterization, explaining the gang was tied to organized violent crime concentrated in three apartment complexes in the city. 

Chamberlain said earlier this year his department had counted a total of nine confirmed Tren de Aragua members who passed through Aurora in the last two years.

The size of the gang is unclear. Countries with large populations of Venezuelan migrants, including Peru and Colombia, have accused the group of being behind a spree of violence in the region.

Authorities in Chile first identified the gang’s operations in 2022. Prosecutors and investigators have said the group initially engaged primarily in human trafficking, organizing unauthorized border crossings and sexual exploitation, but over time, members have expanded their activities to more violent crimes, such as kidnapping, torture, extortion and became more involved in drug trafficking.

While Tren de Argua has dominated ketamine trafficking in Chile, unlike other criminal organizations from Colombia, Central America and Brazil, it has no large-scale involvement in smuggling cocaine across international borders, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that last month published a 64-page report on the gang based on two years of research.

“We’ve found no direct participation of TdA in the transnational drug trade, although there are cases of them acting as subcontractors for other drug trafficking organizations,” said Jeremy McDermott, a Colombia-based co-founder of InSight Crime.

McDermott added that with affiliated cells spread across Latin America, it would not be a huge leap for the gang to one day delve into the drug trade.

Landlocked Bolivia and Colombia, with access to the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea and a border with Venezuela, are the world’s top cocaine producers.

Trump designated Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization

On his first day in office, Mr. Trump took steps to designate the gang a foreign terrorist organization alongside several Mexican drug cartels. The Biden administration had sanctioned the gang and offered $12 million in rewards for the arrest of three of its leaders.

Mr. Trump’s executive order accused the gang of working closely with top Maduro officials — most notably the former vice president and one-time governor of Aragua state, Tareck El Aissami — to infiltrate migration flows, flood the U.S. with cocaine and plot against the country. A U.S. intelligence assessment released earlier this year found minimal contact between the gang and low-level officials in the Venezuelan government but said there was no direct coordination between the gang and the government.

In March, Mr. Trump also declared the group an invading force, invoking an 18th century wartime law that allows the U.S. to deport noncitizens without any legal recourse. Under the Alien Enemies Act, the administration sent more than 250 Venezuelan men to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, where they remained incommunicado and without access to an attorney until their July deportation to Venezuela.

A U.S. appeals court panel this week ruled that Mr. Trump cannot use that law to speed deportations of people his administration accuses of being Tren de Aragua members. A final ruling on the matter, however, will be made by the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration alleged the men deported to the prison were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, but provided little evidence. One justification officials used was that the men had certain kinds of tattoos allegedly signifying gang membership, including crowns, clocks and other symbols. But experts have said tattoos are not reliable markers of affiliation to the gang. 

Trump cites the gang in justifying the military strike

The U.S. has not released the names and nationalities of the 11 people killed Tuesday. It also has not offered an estimate of the amount of drugs it says the boat was carrying.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday told reporters the U.S. military will continue lethal strikes on suspected drug trafficking vessels, but he dodged questions on details of the strike, including if the people in the boat were warned before the attack.

But, he said, Mr. Trump “has a right, under exigent circumstances, to eliminate imminent threats to the United States.”

“If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever, headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat to the United States,” he told reporters in Mexico City during a visit to Latin America.

Venezuela’s government, which has long minimized the presence of Tren de Aragua in the South American country, limited its reaction to the strike to questioning the veracity of a video showing the attack. Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez suggested it was created using artificial intelligence and described it as an “almost cartoonish animation, rather than a realistic depiction of an explosion.”

Hegseth responded that the strike “was definitely not artificial intelligence,” adding he watched live footage from Washington as the strike was carried out.

The strike shows that the U.S. government is “quite literally deadly serious” in its targeting of drug traffickers, said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

But he questioned whether the link to Tren de Aragua has more to do with the “familiarity” that Americans now have with the gang.

“I certainly hope that the U.S. government has the intelligence and we are not shooting first and asking questions later,” Berg said.

Eleven Venezuelans murdered without due process!

Trump says the U.S. military destroyed a boat operated by Tren de Aragua off Venezuela. Here’s what to know about the gang.
The deadly U.S. military strike this week on a boat allegedly carrying drugs​ from Venezuela is the latest measure President Trump has taken to combat the threat he sees from the Tren de Aragua gang.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-boat-tren-de-aragua-gang-venezuela