Aug. 4 (UPI) — The U.S. military’s strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific may have killed people not involved in drug trafficking, said Sen. Tim Kaine after reviewing classified documents on the operation.
The senior Democratic lawmaker from Virginia and a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees sent President Donald Trump a letter Monday urging him to examine whether military leaders exceeded his orders by targeting people the Justice Department did not say could be legally targeted and killed.
“And once you have done so, I urge you to halt this illegal, costly and ineffective operation,” Kaine said.
Since the first strike on Sept. 2, the U.S. Southern Command has killed at least 221 people in 66 publicly acknowledged attacks, according to UPI’s count based on military press releases.
Human rights and legal experts have widely condemned the strikes as illegal extrajudicial killings carried out by the military in what is ostensibly a law enforcement matter. The Trump administration argues that it is in “armed conflict” with the drug cartels.
Little information about the strikes has been made public because much of it is classified. SOUTHCOM has responded to UPI’s requests for information on the planning and execution of these strikes by stating it does not comment on ongoing operations.
In July 2025, Trump authorized the Department of Defense through a still-classified directive to us military force against organizations he selected in a classified target list.
In September, after the strikes began, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion providing legal support for the operation, and stipulating who could be targeted in the attacks. That opinion remains classified, as does an October order from the Pentagon that contains targeting criteria SOUTHCOM is to use in carrying out these strikes.
Kaine said he had reviewed the classified documents, which often include descriptions of the targets and their activities during the kinetic operations. He said the documents make clear “that the United States is engaged in violent and fatal attacks against people far beyond those whom the OLC opinion claimed could be lawfully targeted.”
“In other words, a careful review of the available evidence suggests that the United States has killed individuals who are not involved in narcotrafficking,” he said.
“They are murder victims.”
At least some of those killed in the strikes have been credibly described as fishermen who were not involved in drug trafficking. Colombian President Gustavo Petro has accused Trump of murdering Colombian fisherman Alejandro Carranza in an early September attack. The families of two men killed in October are also suing the Trump administration for damages, saying their loved ones were killed as they were heading home to Trinidad and Tobago after working as fishermen and farmers in nearby Venezuela.
Kaine’s letter follows a report by The Washington Post that found the fatal strikes have failed to curb the amount of cocaine entering the United States.
SOUTHCOM’s Operation Southern Spear, which includes the boat-strike campaign, had incurred $647 million in obligations through March, according to a Pentagon inspector general report.