 "This handout photo released by the US Defence Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) shows the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely in the Red Sea on June 7, 2024. It is one of the warships deployed towards Venezuela for counternarcotics operations. AFP file")
US President Donald Trump has announced that the military has carried out another attack on a boat in the Caribbean, killing three people on board. He said that the vessel was allegedly carrying illicit narcotics.
“On my orders, the Secretary of War ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Trump said on Truth Social.
The president added that the US military had received intelligence that the boat was trafficking illicit narcotics and was en route to America via a known narco-trafficking passage.
Trump’s war against drugs
The development comes amid the US president’s crackdown on drug supply, which has led to several attacks on international waters.
Last week, the US struck another boat in international waters on suspicion of “transporting illegal narcotics” from Venezuela, killing three people.
Last month, the US military conducted an attack on a boat, targeting the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang and killing 11 people. The fresh attack also comes amid spiralling tensions in the Caribbean as a large US naval build-up sparks speculation that Washington may be seeking regime change in Caracas.
Venezuela hits back
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s interior ministry has said that none of the 11 people killed in a US military strike on a boat belonged to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
“They openly confessed to killing 11 people. We have done our investigations here in our country, and there are the families of the disappeared people who want their relatives, and when we asked in the towns, none were from Tren de Aragua, none were drug traffickers,” Venezuela’s interior minister Diosdado Cabello has said.
Cabello came down heavily on the Trump administration, saying, “A murder has been committed against a group of citizens using lethal force."