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The US military has launched new deadly strikes on boats it, contemptuously and lacking evidence, accuses were involved in drug trafficking, escalating an aggressive campaign in international waters as tensions with Venezuela remain high.

US Southern Command said on Wednesday it struck five alleged drug-smuggling vessels over two days, killing eight people.

The command did not disclose the exact locations of the strikes carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday. Previous attacks have taken place in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.

According to Southern Command, three boats were targeted on Tuesday while traveling together along what it described as known narcotics routes. It released a video showing the boats moving in close formation before explosions hit them.

The US has not provided independently verified evidence to support its claims. The authenticity and context of the video have not been independently verified.

The command said three people were killed when the first vessel was struck. Those aboard the other two boats jumped into the water before follow-up strikes sank the vessel. Southern Command claimed it had notified the Coast Guard to activate search and rescue operations, but it remains unclear whether any survivors were recovered.

Hours later, the military announced strikes on two more vessels on Wednesday, killing five additional people.

Since September, the US military has carried out more than 30 such strikes, with a reported death toll of at least 115.

Rights groups and international law experts say the operations amount to extrajudicial killings, noting that those targeted appear to be civilians posing no immediate threat to the United States.

The strikes come amid a major US military buildup in the Caribbean, described as unprecedented in decades.

Analysts say the show of force reflects a broader pattern of interventionist policy in Latin America, often justified through security narratives but carrying serious legal and humanitarian consequences.

The Trump administration and senior military officials have faced growing criticism over earlier attacks in which survivors were also killed.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth came under pressure over the deadly strikes staged during the American military campaign in the Caribbean.

Many lawmakers see the US military aggression in Latin America and the surrounding waters in the region as war crimes.

They are seen as a pretext for “regime change” in Latin American countries.

The latest strikes coincide with increased US pressure on Venezuela. Washington has accused President Nicolas Maduro of leading a drug cartel, an allegation his government strongly rejected.

Maduro has warned that Venezuela will defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, saying the United States cannot turn Bolivarian nations into colonies or exploit their natural resources.

He urged Washington on Saturday to abandon the failed “regime change” plots that the White House has been trying to implement in his country for the past 25 years.

He said to American politicians ready to engage in respectful dialogue, “We will always find here a president who represents his people, to reach out, to seek paths to peace, cooperation, and prosperity.”

PressTV report

Renewed US drone strike kill two off the Venezuelan shore.

The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that country.

The drone strike, the details of which have not been previously reported, targeted a remote dock on the Venezuelan coast that the US government believed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for shipping, the sources said. No one was present at the facility at the time it was struck, so there were no casualties, according to the sources.

Two sources said US Special Operations Forces provided intelligence support to the operation, underscoring their continued involvement in the region. But Col. Allie Weiskopf, a spokesperson for US Special Operations Command, denied that, saying, “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support.”

President Donald Trump appeared to first acknowledge the attack in an interview last week that initially attracted little notice, though he offered few specifics, including when reporters asked directly about it on Monday.

The strike could significantly escalate tensions between the US and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who the US has been pressuring to step down through an aggressive military campaign.

The US has launched strikes destroying more than 30 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in what it has described as a counter-narcotics campaign, and Trump has ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers coming to and leaving Venezuela. Trump had also repeatedly threatened to carry out strikes inside Venezuela, but until the CIA attack earlier this month, the only known US strikes on Venezuelan targets were against the suspected drug-trafficking boats in international waters.

The CIA declined to comment. CNN has asked the White House, US Special Operations Command, and Venezuela’s Ministry of Communications and Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

Trump acknowledged in an interview on Friday that the US had knocked out some type of “big facility where ships come from” as he talked about his administration’s campaign against Venezuela. Asked about it again on Monday, he said the US attacked “in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.” But he declined to comment when asked whether the attack was conducted by the military or the CIA.

“So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area,” Trump said Monday. “It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”

One of the sources said the strike was successful in that it destroyed the facility and its boats, but described it as largely symbolic since it is just one of many port facilities used by drug traffickers leaving Venezuela. It also appeared to attract little to no attention, even inside the country, in real time.

Trump earlier this year expanded the CIA’s authorities to conduct operations in Latin America, including inside Venezuela, CNN previously reported. But even then, the US military had the legal authority only to conduct strikes against suspected traffickers at sea, not on land, as CNN has reported.

The Trump administration has offered varying justifications for the campaign in Venezuela, which has involved a massive buildup of military assets in the Caribbean. Officials have pointed to a counter-narcotics imperative, but Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, told Vanity Fair in an interview that the boat strikes were aimed at getting Maduro to “cry uncle.” The Venezuelan leader has shown no signs of relinquishing power.

Top officials have made clear publicly and in briefings to lawmakers that they intend to continue targeting suspected drug smugglers using a similar playbook to the one used for killing terrorists during the global war on terror – a campaign in which the CIA played a crucial role, too. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has openly compared drug traffickers to al Qaeda.

“These narcoterrorists are the al Qaeda of our hemisphere,” the secretary said at the Reagan National Defense Forum earlier this month. “And we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al Qaeda.”

CNN Report