Archive September 6, 2025

A prominent US news outlet reports that US Navy SEALs shot and killed several North Korean civilians in a blundered mission to install a listening device in the nuclear-armed nation in 2019.

The US Navy’s SEAL Team 6 conducted the classified mission, according to The New York Times on Friday during high-stakes diplomatic negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang in the first half of 2019.

The elite special forces unit, which also killed former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, was assigned to station a listening device in North Korea to spy on its leaders.

However, a number of errors caused civilians to accidentally come across the US special forces while they splashed ashore while working in the dead of night with blackout communications.

The SEALs opened fire, killing everyone aboard a small fishing boat, according to the Times report, without giving a number of casualties.

According to officials familiar with the mission, US soldiers “pulled the bodies into the water to conceal them from the North Korean authorities.” According to one source, SEAL members “punctured the boat crew’s lungs with knives to ensure their bodies would sink.”

The Times claimed to have been able to learn about the flawed mission from dozens of interviews, including with members of the first Trump administration, current and former military personnel, and former and current military personnel.

Due to the mission’s classified status, none of them spoke on condition of anonymity, according to the news outlet. Many people claimed their decision to provide details was motivated by concern that the US military’s special operations failures are “often hidden by government secrecy.”

According to sources, President Trump gave the mission its final approval during his first year in office.

When reporters on Friday questioned Trump about the report, he denied having any knowledge of the operations.

Trump said, “I could look, but I don’t know anything about [it].”

He claimed that this is the first time he has heard it.

Whether Pyongyang ever pieced together what transpired in 2019 was “uncertain,” according to US officials.

As part of its operations against Latin American drug cartels that Washington has labeled “narco-terrorist,” sources in the US reported to news agencies on Friday that 10 of the most advanced fighter jets are being flown to a Puerto Rican airfield.

According to a report from American broadcaster CNN on Friday, the Trump administration is considering attacking drug trafficking organizations in Venezuela, which would mark a dramatic escalation of Washington and Caracas’ already-increasing tensions.

Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, demanded on Friday that the US abandon its “violent regime change plan in Venezuela and throughout Latin America.”

According to Maduro, the US should respect “sovereignty, the right to peace, and independence.”

Trump deserves my respect. He claimed that no military conflict can be caused by any of the differences we have experienced.

Venezuela has always been open to dialogue and converse.

In the wake of weeks of US threats, Maduro has mobilized Venezuela’s military, which has 340 000 soldiers, as well as reservists and militia members, who he claimed had more than 8 million.

Maduro warned reporters earlier this week that “if Venezuela were attacked, it would immediately start an armed struggle.”

Trump claimed on Friday that Venezuela’s regime change was not being discussed by the US.

Trump referred to Maduro’s return to office in January after allegations of irregularities in the country’s presidential election as “we are talking about the fact that you had an election that was very strange, to put it mildly.”

Trump: “They’ll be shot down.”

In addition to the reported US naval expansion in the southern Caribbean, where American warships, a number of Marines, and a large number of fast-attack submarines powered by nuclear power, have been stationed just outside Venezuelan territorial waters, comes the reported deployment of F-35 warplanes.

The US Department of Defense charged Venezuela on Thursday that it was “highly provocative” by flying two F-16 fighter planes close to the USS Jason Dunham, a guided-missile destroyer.

More than 4,500 sailors and marines are on board the Dunham, one of at least seven US warships stationed in the Caribbean.

Trump later said to Venezuela that if ship commanders believe they pose a threat to their vessels, “they’ll be shot down if they put us in a dangerous position.”

A request for comment on Venezuela’s communication ministry’s response to claims that Venezuelan fighter jets flew over a US warship was not received.

Trump claimed Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organization that he had tied to Maduro, belonged to, and that US forces blew up a speedboat in the Caribbean on Tuesday.

Law experts have questioned the legality of Trump’s claim that 11 people were killed in the US attack, which Caracas characterized as an “extrajudicial killing” of civilians.

Trump’s military strategy toward what Washington calls “narco-terrorist” groups was defended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week.

Rubio spoke about drug cartels while in Mexico on Wednesday, saying that “what will stop them is when you blow them up and when you get rid of them.”

On Saturday, September 6, 2018, this is how things are going.

Fighting

• According to the Ministry of Defense, Russian forces seized control of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine’s Markove settlement, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
• According to Robert Brovdi, the commander of Kyiv’s drone forces, Ukraine attacked Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery as well as an oil depot in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region.
• According to Pavel Malkov, the regional governor of Ryazan, debris fell on the grounds of an industrial complex after the Ukrainian attack, and eight drones were shot down by air defense and electronic warfare systems in the area, causing no injuries.
• Under post-war security guarantees reached this week with the so-called “coalition of the willing,” led by French President Emmanuel Macron, led by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “thousands” of foreign troops could be deployed to his country.
• Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, declared that Ukraine’s foreign troops would be legitimate targets. Putin stated at an economic forum in Vladivostok, Russia’s far eastern city, that “we proceed from the fact that these will be legitimate targets for destruction” when some troops showed up there, especially now, during military operations.
• Putin added that he “does not see any sense” in the presence of foreign troops “on the territory of Ukraine, full stop,” if an agreement is reached on “long-term peace” with Ukraine.
• Russian-based forces are only being deployed on Russian territory, according to Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, according to RIA Novosti news agency in Russia.

Ceasefire

• According to President Donald Trump, the United States is still pursuing security guarantees for Ukraine that will put an end to the nation’s conflict with Russia.
• Trump’s “quite cynical” but “good sense” approach to diplomacy is sounded, according to Kremlin spokesman Peskov. Poskov compared Trump’s position to that of Europe, which, he claimed, was putting all efforts into preventing a peaceful settlement.
• Trump, in contrast, is much more approachable. In a good way, he is incredibly cynical. In the context of “why fight when you can trade?” And he does everything to stop wars, Peskov said, citing these American interests.
• Putin and Trump could meet again “very quickly,” Peskov added, adding that it was “necessary” for the Russian leader to do so.

Sanctions

• According to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the allies of Ukraine are working to impose new sanctions on Russia as part of a campaign to pressure President Putin into a ceasefire.

International affairs

After their leaders met with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, Trump claimed that Russia and India appear to have been “lost” to China. “Looks like we’ve lost China’s deepest, darkest, and India’s economies. May they together have a prosperous and fulfilling future together”! Trump accompanied a photo of the three leaders at Xi’s summit in China in a post that Trump posted on social media.

Russian gas and oil

• Chris Wright, the US energy secretary, stated that he is not concerned about the impact of Russian gas exports to China. This week, Russia and China granted the construction of a gas pipeline known as Power of Siberia 2, underscoring Xi’s disregard for Western demands that he step down from a more strategic partnership with Moscow.
• Despite criticism from Slovakia and Hungary, which have experienced Russian oil supply disruptions as a result of Kyiv’s strikes, President Zelenskyy declared that Ukraine would continue to reciprocately respond to Russian attacks on its energy facilities. After speaking with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, with whom he had previously had issues over Russian energy supplies, at his first high level meeting.
• Even as other European Union nations cut ties with Russia as a result of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary have continued to purchase Russian gas and oil via the Druzhba pipeline.
• According to Dan Jorgensen, the bloc’s energy chief, the EU will continue to pursue its plans to phase out Russian oil by 2028. He added that he had not been under pressure from Washington to push this forward.
• The EU’s phase-out plan, according to Hungary and Slovakia, would raise energy prices and cause shortages.
• Jorgensen claimed he was speaking with Hungary and Slovakia about their concerns, but that the EU countries could not agree on the phase-out plans. If there are nations that don’t feel they can support it because of domestic reasons, he said, “this is not something that calls for unanimous consent.”