{"id":288646,"date":"2025-10-09T07:15:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T07:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/288646\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T07:15:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T07:15:18","slug":"us-strike-in-caribbean-may-have-killed-colombians-petro-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/288646\/","title":{"rendered":"US strike in Caribbean may have killed Colombians, Petro says"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) \u2014 Colombia\u2019s President Gustavo Petro<\/a> said Wednesday there were \u201csigns\u201d that Colombian citizens were killed in the last small boat attacked<\/a> by the U.S. military off the coast of Venezuela.<\/p>\n

\u201cA new front in the war has opened: the Caribbean,\u201d Petro wrote on the social platform X. \u201cSigns show that the last bombed boat was Colombian with Colombian citizens aboard.\u201d <\/p>\n

He did not provide any explanation for what those signs were. \u201cI hope that their families come forward and report it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Neither Petro\u2019s office nor Colombia\u2019s Defense Ministry responded immediately to requests for additional information.<\/p>\n

The U.S. government also has not identified who was aboard the boat, nor the three boats attacked previously.<\/p>\n

Last Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the strike<\/a> on a small boat he accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela. He said the strike killed four men but offered no details on who they were or what group they belonged to.<\/p>\n

The first military strike<\/a> was carried out on Sept. 2 on what the Trump administration said was a drug-carrying speedboat, killing 11. U.S. President Donald Trump claimed the boat was operated by the Tren de Aragua gang, which started in Venezuela\u2019s prisons and was listed by the U.S. as foreign terrorist organization<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Then, on Sept. 15, Trump announced the U.S. military had carried out a strike<\/a> on a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela. That strike also killed three on board.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 19, Trump in a social media posting said another strike<\/a> was carried out against a vessel \u201caffiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility\u201d and killed three.<\/p>\n

Trump has told U.S. lawmakers he was treating drug traffickers as unlawful combatants<\/a> and military force was required to combat them.<\/p>\n

Earlier Wednesday, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino told military leaders that the U.S. government knows its drug-trafficking accusations used to support the recent actions in the Caribbean are false, with its true intent being to \u201cforce a regime change\u201d in the South American country. He added that the Venezuelan government does not see the U.S. warships deployment as a mere \u201cpropaganda-like action\u201d and warned the population of a possible escalation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to warn the population: We have to prepare ourselves because the irrationality with which the U.S. empire operates is not normal,\u201d Padrino said during the televised gathering. \u201cIt\u2019s anti-political, anti-human, warmongering, rude and vulgar.\u201d<\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

Follow AP\u2019s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/latin-america<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) \u2014 Colombia\u2019s President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday there were \u201csigns\u201d that Colombian citizens were killed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":288647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[30368,1613,12575,12576,69,20228,57,95233,1612,8132,50,6986,80,4217,67,370,132,68,32322,14513,148311,93,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-288646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-caribbean","10":"tag-central-america","11":"tag-colombia","12":"tag-colombia-government","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-drug-crimes","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-gustavo-petro","17":"tag-latin-america","18":"tag-military-and-defense","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-pete-hegseth","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-south-america","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-government","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-venezuela","28":"tag-venezuela-government","29":"tag-vladimir-padrino","30":"tag-washington-news","31":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115342981476166342","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}