‘They are murder victims’: Senator suggests US strikes have killed people who weren’t involved in drug trafficking

By Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, CNN

(CNN) — The US military’s strikes on alleged drug boats have likely illegally killed “individuals who are not involved in narcotrafficking,” Sen. Tim Kaine told the White House on Monday, following “a careful review” of classified information he has seen so far.

“They are murder victims,” the Virginia Democrat wrote in a letter to President Donald Trump.

So far, the US military has killed at least 221 people and destroyed at least 67 vessels in the “Operation Southern Spear” campaign, which began last September. The administration has told Congress the US is in an “armed conflict” against drug cartels, labeling those killed “unlawful combatants” and claiming the ability to engage in lethal strikes without judicial review due to a classified Justice Department finding.

But Kaine said Monday that his review has led him to believe “the United States is engaged in violent and fatal attacks against people far beyond” the parameters of the classified legal opinion. He added, “A careful review of the available evidence suggests that the United States has killed individuals who are not involved in narcotrafficking.”

Kaine urged Trump to “examine the circumstances of these strikes” and cease what he called an “illegal, costly and ineffective” operation.

The senator sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and in the letter, he pointed to classified information shared with Congress about the strikes and the targets that he had seen.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly defended the strikes in a statement to CNN on Monday evening.

“All of these decisive strikes have been against designated narcoterrorists bringing deadly poison to our shores, and the President will continue to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice,” she said.

CNN has previously reported that military officials don’t always know the identities of everyone on board the boats they target. Officials told the Pentagon inspector general they could not publicly disclose what criteria determine whether a boat is destroyed or intercepted by the Coast Guard.

Kaine’s comments come during a pause on the boat strikes — the most recent occurred on June 21. It is not clear why there has been a break, but law enforcement officials and experts who previously spoke with CNN stressed the resiliency and adaptability of drug smuggling networks and expressed skepticism about whether the strikes will meaningfully change the region’s drug trade.

Meanwhile, US Southern Command, the headquarters overseeing the campaign, has insisted that the mission allows the military to fight the cartels before “their violence and poison” reach the country.

Kaine has previously criticized the administration over how it has conducted operations in the Caribbean and east Pacific. In December 2025, he raised alarm about a so-called double-tap strike that killed survivors on an alleged drug vessel in the Caribbean, suggesting that it “rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true.”

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