SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
nick turse
Another 'Extrajudicial Execution' as US Bombs Second Alleged Venezuelan Drug Boat
"There is no legal justification for this military strike," said one Amnesty International campaigner. "The US must be held accountable."
Sep 15, 2025
President Donald Trump said Monday that the US carried out a fresh strike on what he said was a boat used by Venezuelan drug gangs, killing three people in what one human rights campaigner called another "extrajudicial execution."
"This morning, on my Orders, US Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the [US Southern Command] area of responsibility," Trump said on his Truth Social network. "The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the US."
"These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to US National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital US Interests," the Republican president continued. "The Strike resulted in three male terrorists killed in action. No US Forces were harmed in this Strike."
"BE WARNED—IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU!" Trump added. "The illicit activities by these cartels have wrought DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES ON AMERICAN COMMUNITIES FOR DECADES, killing millions of American Citizens. NO LONGER. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!"
US President Trump just announced that a second drug smuggling boat from Venezuela was hit by a US airstrike in the Caribbean, killing 3 people on board the boat.#Venezuela pic.twitter.com/dO34gYr9GZ
— CNW (@ConflictsW) September 15, 2025
Responding to arguments by legal experts and Venezuelan officials that the September 2 strike was illegal, Trump said Sunday that "what's illegal are the drugs that were on the boat... and the fact that 300 million people died last year from drugs."
Only 62 million people died in the entire world of all causes last year, making Trump's claim impossibly false.
Monday's attack followed the September 2 bombing of a vessel allegedly transporting cocaine off the Venezuelan coast, a strike that killed 11 people. Venezuelan officials say none of the 11 men were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, as claimed by Trump.
On his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Last month, the president reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat drug cartels abroad, sparking fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US attacks, invasions, occupations, and other interventions since the issuance of the dubious Monroe Doctrine in 1823.
The Intercept's Nick Turse reported Monday that the Trump administration's recently rebranded Department of War "is thwarting congressional oversight" of the September 2 attack.
“I’m incredibly disturbed by this new reporting that the Trump administration launched multiple strikes on the boat off Venezuela,” Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said in response to Turse's reporting. “They didn’t even bother to seek congressional authorization, bragged about these killings—and teased more to come.”
Common Dreams reported last week that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) introduced a war powers resolution seeking to restrain Trump from conducting attacks in the Caribbean.
Also last week, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) led a letter signed by two dozen Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asserting that the Trump administration offered "no legitimate justification" for the first boat strike.
It's not just congressional Democrats who have decried Trump's September 2 attack. Last week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that "the recent drone attack on a small speedboat over 2,000 miles from our shore without identification of the occupants or the content of the boat is in no way part of a declared war, and defies our longstanding Coast Guard rules of engagement."
“What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial," Paul later added.
Paul also mirrored Democratic lawmakers' questioning of Trump's narrative that the boat bombed on September 2 was heading to the United States.
Echoing congressional critics, Daphne Eviatar, director of Amnesty International's Security With Human Rights program, said of Monday's attack, "Today, President Trump claimed his administration carried out another lethal strike against a boat in the Caribbean."
"This is an extrajudicial execution, which is murder," Eviatar added. "There is no legal justification for this military strike. The US must be held accountable."
Keep ReadingShow Less
New Year's Attacks Underscore Ties Between Military Service and Violent Extremism
"U.S. military service is the strongest predictor of carrying out extremist violence," noted one expert.
Jan 03, 2025
As right-wing figures blamed factors ranging from Islam to the Biden administration's nonexistent "open borders policy" for the deadly New Year's Day attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas, progressive observers noted Thursday that the men who carried out those attacks both served in the U.S. military, which one historian called "a consistent incubator of violence that returns home."
Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump was among those weighing in on the New Orleans attack, in which authorities say 42-year-old Shamsud Din-Jabbar—who was killed at the scene during a shootout with police—plowed a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's revelers on Bourbon Street, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more.
Apparently misinformed by an erroneous Fox News report, Trump falsely called Jabbar a career criminal and recent immigrant and attributed the New Orleans attack to President Joe Biden's "open border's (sic) policy."
"That Mr. Trump persists in deploying the politics of hate and bigotry is a bad sign for the U.S."
Jabbar was born and raised in Texas. He was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier from 2007-15 and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan.
"He was, in short, a patriotic American who did his part in fighting the War on Terror," Juan Cole wrote Thursday on his Informed Comment site. "He was not an immigrant or a member of a foreign criminal gang."
"That Mr. Trump persists in deploying the politics of hate and bigotry is a bad sign for the U.S.," Cole continued. "Even if Jabbar had been a immigrant, his actions would have said nothing about immigrants, who have low rates of criminality compared to the native-born population and whose productivity has been one key to American economic success."
"Nor is Jabbar's religion a reason to engage in Muslim-hatred," he asserted, decrying the New York Post for "ominously" reporting that "Jabbar referenced the Quran" and had animals including sheep, goats, and chickens in the backyard of his Houston home.
"D'oh," Cole added. "He was a Muslim. He also referenced the Quran when he was in Afghanistan as part of the U.S. Army's fight against the Taliban."
Matthew Livelsberger, the 37-year-old suspected driver of the Tesla Cybertruck blown ups outside the Trump International Las Vegas Hotel on Wednesday, was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier. The explosion of the truck, which was laden with fireworks and fuel canisters, injured seven people. Authorities said Livelsberger fatally shot himself inside the vehicle before the blast.
While given scant in-depth coverage in the U.S. corporate media, numerous observers highlighted the attackers' military backgrounds.
The Intercept's Nick Turse on Thursday published a piece asserting that "U.S. military service is the strongest predictor of carrying out extremist violence." Citing a new, unreleased report from researchers at the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), Turse, who viewed the publication, noted that "from 1990 to 2010, about seven persons per year with U.S. military backgrounds committed extremist crimes," and that "since 2011, that number has jumped to almost 45 per year."
Turse continued:
From 1990 through 2023, 730 individuals with U.S. military backgrounds committed criminal acts that were motivated by their political, economic, social, or religious goals, according to data from the new START report. From 1990 to 2022, successful violent plots that included perpetrators with a connection to the U.S. military resulted in 314 deaths and 1,978 injuries—a significant number of which came from the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
"Military service is also the single strongest individual predictor of becoming a 'mass casualty offender,' far outpacing mental health issues, according to a separate study of extremist mass casualty violence by the researchers," Turse added.
Both Jabbar and Livelsberger were once stationed at Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. Although their time there overlapped, there is no indication that the men knew each other. Turse called Fort Liberty "an exceptionally troubled Army base."
"Investigations found, for example, that 109 soldiers assigned there died in 2020 and 2021," he wrote. "Ninety-six percent of those deaths took place stateside. Fewer than 20 were from natural causes. The remaining soldier fatalities, including macabre or unexplained deaths, homicides, and dozens of drug overdoses, were preventable."
The issue of violence committed by soldiers and veterans gained national attention during the height of the so-called War on Terrord—which is still ongoing—amid a wave of domestic and other killings and suicides attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), more than 1 in 6 veterans of the Afghanistan or Iraq wars screened positive for PTSD, compared with about 1 in 10 nondeployed vets.
The VA also reported in 2018 that 1 in 4 male and 1 in 5 female veterans deployed during the War on Terror who received care from the agency had PTSD.
There is also the issue of who the military allowed to enlist. In an effort to fill the military's ranks during the War on Terror, some service branches lowered recruiting standards and allowed neo-Nazis, gang members, and other violent criminals to serve.
"This policy, which was behind many atrocities abroad, is now coming home," author Matt Kennard said Thursday on social media.
In 2022, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) introduced an amendment to 2023 military spending bill requiring the Pentagon and federal law enforcement agencies to publish a report on countering white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity in the armed forces.
The measure passed—without a single Republican vote.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Malians Describe Atrocities Committed by US-Backed Army Troops, Wagner Mercenaries
"Here we have the AFRICOM/Wagner overlap," said journalist Nick Turse, referring to U.S. troops and Russian hired guns in the African nation.
Jul 24, 2023
Mali's U.S.-backed army and foreign fighters apparently from the Russian mercenary firm Wagner Group have forcibly disappeared and murdered dozens of civilians in the African nation's central region since last December, Human Rights Watch said Monday.
HRW interviewed 40 people including 20 eyewitnesses to atrocities perpetrated by Malian forces in the villages of Ouenkoro, Séguéla, Sossobé, and Thioffol, as well as numerous victims' relatives, community leaders, activists, and representatives of international organizations.
A 45-year-old mother of seven from Thioffol who was shot in the foot described a December 18, 2022 raid by Malian troops.
"One [soldier] asked us: 'Where are the men?' We said they were out grazing animals," she told HRW. "He replied: 'If we found your men, we would have massacred them.' He ordered us out, while other soldiers stole our silver bracelets, kitchen utensils, and water cans... As soldiers started leaving, one turned back, stood on the doorstep, and opened fire. Four of us died on the spot, including a girl."
Mali's army and mercenaries have been waging a U.S.-backed war against al-Qaeda-affiliated Jamaa Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and rival Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) in the Mopti and Ségou regions. The Pentagon's U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is present and conducts operations in Mali.
As Nick Turse noted at The Intercept on Monday:
The U.S. has poured billions of dollars in military assistance into Mali and its neighbors over roughly two decades—enabling human rights abuses by providing weapons and training to militaries that have terrorized civilians, according to the United Nations, human rights advocacy groups, and the U.S. State Department. U.S.-trained military officers have also repeatedly conducted coups, including the putsch leader who toppled Mali's governments in 2020 and 2021. While the coups triggered restrictions on U.S. aid, Pentagon officials have pointed to Wagner's growing influence across Africa as a reason to keep the money flowing.
While Mali's military government, led by Interim President Col. Assimi Goïta since May 2021, has said that Russian military trainers are in the country as part of a bilateral agreement, it denies the presence of Wagner mercenaries.
"However," says HRW, "there is growing evidence of activities and abuses in Mali by [the] private military security company run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin until tensions between the Russian defense ministry and Wagner Group escalated in Russia on June 24."
Survivors and witnesses in Ouenkoro, Séguéla, and Sossobé reported the participation of foreign, non-French-speaking fighters in the raids. These men were described as "white," "Russian," and "Wagner" and, according to HRW, committed just a fraction of the reported abuses.
Residents of Séguéla described how foreign fighters in three helicopters attacked the village on February 3, going door-to-door and rounding up men.
"There were almost only white Wagner soldiers, they led the whole operation," one man said. "They were heavily armed, masked, and wore camouflage uniforms and spoke a language we did not understand, but which was not French."
"They took random people, including very old men."
Another man claimed that "two white soldiers broke into my house, searched it, and took away all my wife's jewelry."
The invaders arrested 17 men between the age of 27 and 82, almost all of them members of the Fulani ethnic group.
"They selected 17 men whom they suspected were jihadists or their accomplices," one eyewitness said. "They took random people, including very old men."
More than three weeks later, a group of Séguéla villagers found the bodies of 13 men—including eight of those arrested on February 3—in a deserted area outside a nearby village. All of the victims were bound and appeared to have been shot; four also had their throats slit "to the point where the heads were almost completely cut off," according to one witness.
People interviewed by HRW also said that Malian and foreign forces tortured detainees to force confessions regarding their membership in Islamist groups. HRW has previously documented alleged summary executions, enforced disappearances, and incommunicado detentions by Malian forces in the region.
The apparent presence of Wagner mercenaries in Mali comes as the country's military government has expelled both the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and the thousands of French troops who had occupied parts of the country for nearly a decade, sometimes harming civilians, like in the January 2021 airstrike on a wedding party that killed 19 people.
The U.N. says 187 peacekeepers died during the 10-year Mali operation, which is set to fully wind down by the end of the year following Mali's request to leave.
According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping project, at least 5,750 people have been killed in over 1,740 incidents across Mali between January 2022 and March 2023. The conflict has spilled over into neighboring Sahel countries including Burkina Faso and has worsened a humanitarian crisis in which hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and nearly 9 million people require humanitarian assistance.
The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union have sanctioned Ivan Maslov, who commands Wagner Group forces in Mali.
HRW, meanwhile, is calling on African transnational organizations to act against human rights violators in Mali.
"The U.N. peacekeepers' impending withdrawal makes it more crucial than ever for the Malian authorities to protect civilians and prevent further abuses during military operations," Carine Kaneza Nantulya, HRW's deputy Africa director, said in a statement Monday.
"The African Union and the Economic Community of West African States should express their concerns about grave abuses by the Malian armed forces and allied apparent Wagner Group fighters," she added, "and increase pressure on the Malian authorities to end these violations and hold those responsible to account."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular