Operation Southern Spear: Undisclosed Military Escalation and the Machinery of Regime Change Against Venezuela
Trump's military campaign cloaks regime change in counternarcotics rhetoric, killing 80+ in undisclosed strikes with classified CIA operations.
The Campaign Emerges from the Shadows
Between August and September 2025, the Trump administration constructed the legal and operational architecture for what would become Operation Southern Spear. In August, the administration doubled the bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from $25 million to $50 million, framing him as the world’s largest narco-trafficker. Days later, Trump signed a classified directive permitting the U.S. military to use force against Latin American cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizations, establishing the legal foundation for what would follow.
On September 2, 2025, the first strike occurred. A boat operating near Venezuelan coastal waters was destroyed, killing all 11 people aboard. The Trump administration immediately characterized the victims as narco-terrorists without providing evidence to support the designation or identifying the specific individuals. This first strike set the operational pattern that would define the campaign: lethal strikes in international waters, limited transparency regarding targeting decisions, and categorical denials when questioned about civilian casualties.
Over the subsequent 10 weeks, the U.S. military conducted 21 documented strikes across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing approximately 80 individuals. The Pentagon released videos of some strikes but provided no names of the deceased, no documentation of alleged terrorist affiliations, and no evidence linking the victims to the designated terrorist organizations cited as justification. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced each new strike through X (formerly Twitter), treating the killings as routine operational updates worthy of brief social media posts.
The Associated Press Investigation Exposes the Targeting Gap
In October 2025, investigative journalist Regina Garcia Cano of the Associated Press traveled to Venezuelan coastal communities to identify and investigate the victims. What she discovered contradicted the administration’s terrorism narrative. García Cano interviewed dozens of residents and family members in villages including Güiría and San Juan de Unare, the points of departure for several targeted vessels.
Of the nine individuals García Cano identified, most were running drugs but were not narco-terrorists, cartel leaders, or gang members as the Trump administration had claimed. The deceased included a fisherman, a bus driver, a former military cadet, a local crime boss, laborers, and a motorcycle driver. Most had been recruited for their first or second drug run, compensated with approximately $500 per trip—a wage reflecting their low status in trafficking hierarchies, not leadership positions within designated terrorist organizations.
When García Cano returned to Venezuela for follow-up reporting, she encountered regime intimidation. Venezuelan security officials descended on San Juan de Unare, cut off electrical power, and made clear that public discussion of the attacks was unwelcome. Families of the deceased faced direct threats from Venezuelan authorities and feared speaking to reporters would result in punishment.
This investigative work created an insurmountable documentary record: many of those killed were neither designated terrorists nor leadership figures within criminal organizations. They were economically desperate individuals recruited for single trafficking voyages. The Trump administration’s categorical assertion that all 80 deceased were narco-terrorists collapsed under scrutiny, yet administration officials did not revise their public statements or provide the transparency that García Cano’s reporting demanded.
