The Intercept80%
The U.S. Has Now Killed More Than 200 People in Ongoing Spree of Boat Strikes 11%
By Nick Turse66%
11/17/2025, 10:15:24 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Biased Writer Voice, and Unattributed Quote, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 21.8% saturation with 174 hits. Analysis detected 987 faulty-reasoning hits from 798 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 27.2% and a BS Rank of 11% (19,672 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 89.90% of the article peer group.
Since September, the Trump administration has conducted an undeclared war in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing scores of civilians.
The Intercept is chronicling all publicly declared U.S. attacks and providing a tracker with information on each strike.
The administration insists the attacks are permitted because the U.S. is engaged in “non-international armed conflict” with “designated terrorist organizations,” or DTOs.
President Donald Trump has justified the attacks, in a War Powers report to Congress, under his Article II constitutional authority as commander in chief of the U.S. military and claimed to be acting pursuant to the United States’ inherent right of self-defense as a matter of international law.
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has also produced a classified opinion that provides legal cover for the lethal strikes.
Experts in the laws of war and members of Congress, from both parties, say the strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians — even suspected criminals — who do not pose an imminent threat of violence.
The summary executions are a significant departure from standard practice in the long-running U.S. war on drugs, in which law enforcement agencies arrested suspected drug smugglers.
The Pentagon has repeatedly withheld information on the attacks from members of Congress and the American public, despite mounting questions from lawmakers about the legality of these deadly strikes.
So The Intercept is publishing a strike tracker documenting America’s newest war.
The locations and casualty figures are drawn from information provided by U.S.
Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Office of the Secretary of War, and social media posts by Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Number of Strikes
Total Killed
Total Survivors
62
205
6
May 30, 2026
Death toll: 3
Theater: Pacific Ocean
Target: Unspecified Designated Terrorist Organization
May 29, 2026
May 27, 2026
Death toll: 2
May 26, 2026
May 8, 2026
May 5, 2026
May 4, 2026
Theater: Caribbean
April 26, 2026
April 24, 2026
April 19, 2026
April 15, 2026
April 14, 2026
Death toll: 4
April 13, 2026
April 11, 2026
Death toll: 6, from 2 separate strikes, including one survivor now presumed dead.
March 25, 2026
March 19, 2026
Death toll: 2, with one survivor rescued by the U.S.
Coast Guard and transferred to Costa Rica.
March 8, 2026
Death toll: 6
February 23, 2026
February 20, 2026
February 16, 2026
Death toll: 11 killed in three strikes, 8 of them in the Pacific Ocean, 3 in the Caribbean Sea.
Theater: 2 strikes in the Pacific, 1 in the Caribbean.
February 13, 2026
Theater: Carribean
February 9, 2026
Death toll: 2 initially, leaving one survivor.
The survivor was not found and is presumed to be dead, bringing the total to 3.
February 5, 2026
January 23, 2026
Death toll: 2 initially, leaving one survivor.
The Coast Guard failed to find the survivor, who is presumed to be dead, bringing the total to 3.
December 31, 2025
Death toll: 5 killed in two strikes, 3 aboard one ship and 2 aboard the other
Theater: Unspecified
December 30, 2025
Death toll: 11 killed in three strikes.
U.S.
Southern Command initially announced that three people were killed in a strike on one boat, and an unnamed number of survivors evacuated the other two boats.
The Coast Guard later called off its search for the survivors.
After questions from The Intercept, SOUTHCOM added eight more to the death toll.
December 29, 2025
December 22, 2025
Death toll: 1
December 18, 2025
Death toll: 5 killed in two strikes, death tolls of 3 and 2
December 17, 2025
December 15, 2025
Death toll: 8 killed in three strikes, death tolls of 3, 2, and 3
December 4, 2025
November 15, 2025
November 10, 2025
Target: “Narcoterrorists”
November 9, 2025
Death toll: 6 killed in two strikes, 3 aboard each ship
Theater: Both in Pacific Ocean
Target: Unspecified Designated Terrorist Organizations
November 6, 2025
November 4, 2025
November 1, 2025
October 29, 2025
October 27, 2025
Death toll: 14 killed in three separate strikes — with one reported survivor (eight aboard one boat, four on another and three on the last).
The Mexican Navy failed to find the survivor, who is presumed to be dead, bringing the total to 15.
October 23 or 24, 2025
Target: Tren de Aragua (Venezuela)
October 22, 2025
October 21, 2025
October 17, 2025
Target: Ejército de Liberación Nacional (Colombia)
October 16, 2025
Death toll: 2 killed, 2 captured and later repatriated to Colombia and Ecuador.
October 14, 2025
October 2, 2025
September 19, 2025
September 15, 2025
Target: “Drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists”
September 2, 2025
Death toll: 11
Analysis
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