President Gustavo Petro reported the deaths of five children in two recent military bombings, adding to seven reported by the office of Colombia's human rights ombudsman. Their ages were not provided.
Later on Monday, Colombia's National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences said three minors were killed during strikes on August 24 in the southern central Guaviare department.
All were "victims of forced recruitment by criminals who led them into hostilities," Petro wrote on X after the military and prosecutors announced an investigation into an attack on October 10 that killed 19 guerrillas and seven children.
The UN Human Rights Office in Colombia had expressed "deep concern" over the reported deaths of minors, urging the security forces to do whatever possible to protect children kidnapped by guerrilla groups.
One minor is abducted every two days on average in Colombia, often to be trained as fighters.
Petro, who said he had ordered the bombings to protect soldiers' lives, said he regretted the "painful loss" of children.
"I will carry this sorrow in my conscience," he wrote, asking the victims' mothers for forgiveness.
But Petro refused a request from the ombudsman's office to halt the strikes targeting a faction of dissidents of the FARC guerrilla group that disarmed after a 2016 peace deal.
Prosecutors say more than 1,100 children were abducted by armed groups between 2019 and 2023.
From 1996 to 2016, the number was as high as 23,800.
b>U.S. military kills three in latest eastern Pacific boat strike
Washington DC (UPI) Nov 16, 2025 -
The U.S. military conducted another attack on an alleged drug smuggling ship in international waters of the eastern Pacific, killing three people, U.S. Southern Command confirmed Sunday as criticism of the strikes continues to mount.
Some 80 people have been killed in the 21 known attacks the U.S. military has conducted targeting alleged drug cartel boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean since Sept. 2. It also comes amid a U.S. military buildup in the region.
The attack was conducted Saturday at the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, U.S. Southern Command said in a statement, which said the boat was being operated by a designated terrorist organization.
No proof of ties to a terrorist organization was provided, but Southern Command said "intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route and carrying narcotics."
The statement did not state which designated terrorist organization was behind the boat. A black-and-white video was included, showing a motor boat moving at what appears to be a high rate of speed across a body of water before exploding in a ball of fire.
Trump, via executive order, has listed eight drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.
Since the first strike was conducted, lawmakers, critics, human rights advocates and leaders of foreign countries have raised concerns over the attacks.
While Democrats have questioned the legality of the strikes being conducted without congressional approval, United Nations experts have described it as "extrajudicial executions" and Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused Trump of murder, saying one of the attacks killed a fisherman.
Last week, Colombia suspended intelligence sharing with the United States over the attacks. The strikes have also reportedly prompted Britain to stop sharing intelligence with the United States about suspected drug trafficking boats.
The Trump administration has defended the strikes as necessary to protect Americans from the drugs the boats are allegedly shipping to the United States. It has said the United States is in "armed conflict" with the drug cartels.
President Donald Trump has said he doesn't think they will seek congressional approval and that "we are just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country."
On Sunday, the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group entered the Caribbean amid the growing tensions in the region.
U.S. to designate Venezuela-based Cartel de los Soles as terrorist organization
Washington DC (UPI) Nov 17, 2025 -
The Trump administration said it intends to designate a Venezuelan-based drug cartel as a foreign terrorist organization, amid signals that it may take military action against the Caribbean nation.
The State Department announced Sunday that it "intends" to designate Cartel de los Soles. The designation will go into effect Nov. 24.
It claimed, without providing proof, that the cartel was "headed" by Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, a longtime foe of Trump, and other high-ranking regime officials.
"Cartel de los Soles by and with other designated FTOs including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel are responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
"The United States will continue using all available tools to protect our national security interests and deny funding and resources to narco-terrorists."
The announcement comes as the Trump administration has been heightening tensions in the Pacific and Caribbean.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump's targeting of cartels and drug trafficking has been central to his hardline anti-immigration policy.
On Feb. 20, he designated eight cartels as terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists, followed by invoking the Alien Enemies Act in March under the justification that TdA was perpetrating an "invasion" of the United States at the direction of Maduro to expedite the detention and removal of non-citizens.
The president's administration has yet to provide evidence of Maduro's involvement, and his own National Intelligence Council concluded in May that Maduro "probably does not have a policy of cooperating" with TdA.
Trump's invocation of the AEA has been challenged in court, resulting in several judges either blocking or limiting its use amid litigation over concerns, including the notion that the United States was being invaded.
Since Sept. 2, Trump has been attacking boats in the Pacific and Caribbean, killing some 80 people, stating they are drug traffickers piloting drug-trafficking vessels. But the attacks have attracted both domestic and international condemnation and accusations of extrajudicial killings from United Nations experts and even accusations of murder from the president of Colombia.
Last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Operation Southern Spear.
"This mission defends our homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our hemisphere and secures our homeland from the drugs that are killing our people," he said.
Amid a U.S. military buildup in the region, the United States on Sunday deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, the largest aircraft carrier in the world, to the Caribbean Sea.
On Friday, following high-level meetings on Venezuela, Trump told reporters that he has "sort of made up my mind" on a plan of action, though he did not say what it was.
Maduro has long been a target of Trump. Following Maduro's widely discredited election to a second term in 2019, Trump attempted to oust Maduro through a maximum pressure campaign of sanctions, political pressure and threats, which ended when Joe Biden was elected U.S. President in 2020.
Amid the current military buildup, the Venezuelan leader has repeatedly called for peace with the United States.
"We send our message from Venezuela to Christians in the United States and throughout America, to be defenders and carry the banner of peace, harmony and forgiveness," Maduro said in a statement on Sunday.
"It's a sacred union that moves us!"
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