(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he ordered another deadly military strike on a boat off the coast of Venezuela in what appears to be the fifth such strike in the Caribbean Sea, killing six people.
Both Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released video of the attack, which showed what appeared to be a speed boat hit by a sudden explosion. Trump said the vessel was affiliated with an unnamed “designated terrorist organization conducting narcotrafficking.”
Trump said, “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics” and “was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks …” was in “International Waters” and that “six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike.”
Since Sept. 2, Trump has ordered military strikes on at least five boats in the Caribbean Sea that the administration insists were carrying drugs to the U.S. According to the government’s account, the military has killed 27 people.
The use of lethal of military force against drug boats is unprecedented, with past administrations relying on law enforcement to interdict drug shipments. While posting videos on social media of the strikes, Hegseth and Trump have not provided details on who was killed, their nationalities, what kinds of drugs they were carrying, or exactly where they were headed.
Instead, Trump has told lawmakers that he sees drug traffickers as “terrorists” and “unlawful combatants” and that the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with the cartels.
Trump has ordered the Pentagon to create a new military task force “to crush the cartels” carrying drugs to the U.S., an indication that the administration is planning to expand military operations in Latin America even as lawmakers and independent experts have questioned the legality of using military force against criminal organizations.
Last week, in a post on X, Hegseth said U.S. Southern Command will lead the “counter-narcotics Joint Task Force.”
“At the President’s direction, the Department of War is establishing a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility to crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe,” Hegseth wrote. “The message is clear: if you traffic drugs toward our shores, we will stop you cold.”
SOUTHCOM referred all questions on the strike to the White House, which declined to say who exactly was in the boat and where exactly the boat was located.
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