(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the U.S. ordered a strike on another alleged drug boat that left Venezuela.
“Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike, and no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation. The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people,” Hegseth said in an X post, which included footage of the attack.
The defense secretary didn’t give more details about the attack, and only claimed that intelligence “confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route.
This is now the fourth strike off the coast of Venezuela in what the Trump administration insists are international waters.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration told Congress that it believes it’s engaged in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and that it believes anyone smuggling illegal drugs should be considered “unlawful combatants.” The term is a legal one used during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars by the government to justify lethal force by military troops as well as indefinite detention.
Putting drug runners in the same camp as al-Qaida fighters on the battlefield has prompted skepticism among legal experts who say the legal rationale is a stretch. It’s also unclear which groups are being targeted. President Trump has insisted the first boat strike included members of the Tren de Aragua gang, but the administration hasn’t said who was killed in subsequent boat strikes, including the one on Friday.
One official on Capitol Hill told ABC News this week that lawmakers were interpreting the latest notice on the strikes as the administration “essentially waging a secret war against secret enemies, without the consent of Congress.”
U.S. officials have long claimed that Venezuelan cocaine shipments contribute to overdose deaths in the U.S. — and they accuse the country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, of facilitating drug trafficking, which he denies. The Trump administration has placed a $50 million bounty on his head for his arrest.
Earlier this year, the administration designated all drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations,” which officials say gives them the legal authority to go after them without due process.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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