The Trump administration now claims there are 24 designated terrorist organizations engaged in armed conflict with the United States, justifying deadly strikes on alleged drug smugglers at sea, according to three government sources who spoke to The Intercept. This updated list of Latin American cartels and criminal organizations is attached to a classified opinion produced by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). The opinion supports the administration’s argument that attacks on suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean are lawful.
Among the groups reportedly designated as engaged in “non-international armed conflict” with the U.S. are the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua; Ejército de Liberación Nacional, a Colombian guerrilla insurgency; Cártel de los Soles, a Venezuelan criminal organization alleged to be “headed by Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals”; and several groups affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel. Two government sources who requested anonymity confirmed this information to The Intercept, noting that the full list has not been disclosed—even to all members of the House Armed Services Committee.
There is no evidence that the groups on this list are actively participating in armed conflict with the United States. Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer specializing in counterterrorism and the laws of war, criticized the administration’s stance. “The administration has established a factual and legal alternate universe for the executive branch,” he said. “This is the president, purely by fiat, saying that the U.S. is in conflict with these undisclosed groups without any congressional authorization. So this is not just a secret war, but a secret unauthorized war. Or, in reality, a make-believe war, because most of these groups we probably couldn’t even be in a war with.”
Since September, the U.S. military has conducted 17 known attacks on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific oceans, killing at least 70 people. The most recent strike, carried out on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea on Thursday, resulted in the deaths of three civilians. Military officials admitted to lawmakers that they do not always know the identities of all individuals on board before launching lethal attacks.
Following most of these strikes, War Secretary Pete Hegseth or then-President Donald Trump claimed the victims were members of an unspecified designated terrorist organization (DTO). However, experts in the laws of war and members of Congress argue these strikes constitute illegal extrajudicial killings. They emphasize that the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians—even suspected criminals—unless they pose an imminent threat of violence.
These summary executions mark a significant departure from longstanding U.S. drug war practices, which traditionally involved law enforcement arresting suspected drug smugglers rather than killing them.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Hegseth, and other administration officials briefed a small, bipartisan group of national security lawmakers for about an hour in a secure Capitol facility. Attendees described the administration’s legal justifications as unconvincing.
“The Trump administration remains unable to provide any credible explanation for its extrajudicial and unauthorized military strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific,” said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, after the briefing. “It was clear from this briefing that the administration’s legal justifications are dubious and meant to circumvent Congress’ constitutional power on matters of war and peace. I continue to believe these strikes are illegal and an enormous overreach of executive power.”
The Pentagon has withheld key details about the attacks and the list of DTOs for nearly two months and has yet to share all relevant information with lawmakers.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Intercept, “While I am glad to have finally been provided the OLC opinion to review, I continue to find it unconvincing and am concerned that the legal reasoning it employs could be used to justify a range of operations that, like the current operations, are deeply problematic. It’s unacceptable that only a handful of Members are allowed to understand the Administration’s interpretation of the law. The Administration needs to immediately make the opinion and list of DTOs available for all of Congress to review so that we can conduct our constitutionally mandated oversight of the use of lethal military force.”
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans blocked a war powers resolution on Thursday aimed at preventing President Trump from attacking Venezuela. The resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), sought to direct the president “to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces for hostilities within or against Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force.” The vote failed narrowly, with 49 senators in favor and 51 opposed.
The resolution had 15 co-sponsors, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Kaine stated, “If colleagues believe that a war against the narco-traffickers in the ocean or a war against Venezuela is a good idea, then put an [authorization of military force] on the table and debate and vote it, but don’t just hand the power over to an executive. That runs against everything that this nation was founded on.”
According to Pentagon briefers, the administration has no plans to seek an authorization for use of military force (AUMF) similar to the 2001 AUMF, which authorized counterterrorism operations against those responsible for 9/11.
Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee who attended a recent briefing, rejected the administration’s approach. “Even if Congress authorized it, this would still be illegal under U.S. and international law because we are not in an armed conflict with these cartels,” she told The Intercept. “And so this is just murder.”
Six government officials, including two who confirmed the count of 24 DTOs, expressed high confidence that most, if not all, of the targeted boats were involved in drug smuggling. Sources explained that the United States has been using top-secret, sensitive compartmented information (SCI) derived from human intelligence sources and signals intelligence provided by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA to inform these strikes.
Nevertheless, lawmakers voiced concerns about the targeting procedures used by the military. Himes stated he was not confident that current operations employ the same “structure and architecture” used in past counterterrorism strikes to minimize civilian casualties, and that adequate safeguards may be missing within the intelligence community.
Rep. Jacobs added, “If they cannot find a connection or show a connection with a DTO, then it goes to the law enforcement route with an interdiction. That was their decision tree. But when we tried to nail them down on what that connection is, how they demonstrate it, and what they look for, we didn’t get a lot of good information. They know how many people they killed, but it seemed like they were not really conducting any post-strike evidence gathering.”
The individuals killed aboard these vessels are far from high-level drug kingpins. An investigation by The Associated Press into nine of those killed revealed that while they had been involved in drug smuggling, they were not narco-terrorists or gang leaders. Instead, they were laborers, a fisherman, a motorcycle taxi driver, two low-level criminals, and one local crime boss. All came from desperately poor areas, and most were crewing such boats for only the first or second time.
Military briefers have admitted to members of Congress that they cannot meet the evidentiary burden required to detain or prosecute survivors of these strikes.
Neither U.S. Southern Command, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Justice Department, nor the White House has provided the list of the 24 DTOs purportedly engaged in secret wars with the United States. The count of 24 was first reported by CNN on Thursday, according to a single government source.
The purported conflicts between the U.S. and groups such as Tren de Aragua, Ejército de Liberación Nacional, Cártel de los Soles, various Sinaloa Cartel factions, and other criminal organizations are largely seen as a farce. America’s adversaries are unaware they are considered at war with the U.S., and the American public remains uninformed about the government’s supposed state of armed conflict.
Some experts even question the existence of the Cártel de los Soles, explaining it is more a corrupt system than a structured criminal group. Comparisons have been drawn to “antifa,” which the Trump administration labeled a “domestic terror organization,” despite it representing a set of political ideas rather than an organization.
Notably, the Cártel de los Soles is absent from a two-volume, 670-page State Department report on global anti-drug operations released earlier this year.
“The bottom line is, these strikes are illegal,” said Finucane. “We need to see the full list of groups that the government has given itself permission to attack without congressional authorization. And Congress needs to push back on this lawless killing and a potential real, illegal war with Venezuela.”
https://theintercept.com/2025/11/07/trump-dto-list-venezuela-boat-strikes/