Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the United States military carried out a strike on what he called a “narco-trafficking vessel” just off the coast of Venezuela on Friday morning. Four men on board died in the attack, and no United States forces were injured, Hegseth added.
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“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route,” Hegseth said on X. “These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
He did not say which organizations the men on the vessel were associated with, nor how much of the narcotics they had with them. President Donald Trump, however, on Truth Social said the drugs were enough to “kill 25 TO 50 THOUSAND PEOPLE.”
When asked for clarification, a duty officer from Pentagon Press Operations told Straight Arrow News the agency has “nothing additional to provide outside of the Secretary’s statement from the X post.”
This marks the fourth such strike in the Caribbean by U.S. Armed Forces since September. In total, 21 people have died in these strikes, the federal government said.
The Trump administration previously told Congress in a memo reported on by The Associated Press that the president “determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations.” The memo stated that the president directed the Pentagon to “conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, during a September press conference, said the Trump administration is using drug trafficking allegations as an excuse for its military operation, with the aim of intimidating and “seeking a regime change” in Venezuela, the AP reported. Experts from the United Nations also condemned earlier U.S. assaults on vessels, stating that international law does not allow for unprovoked attacks on ships and “insists on a law enforcement, not military approach to using force.”
Columbian President Gustavo Petro weighed in on X Friday, stating that there were no “narco-terrorists” on the boat, but instead, “poor Caribbean youth.” He called the United States’ actions “murder.”
