The U.S. military conducted a strike on a vessel in the Caribbean that the Pentagon alleges was involved in drug trafficking, resulting in the deaths of four people on board, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Friday.
This attack on the ship off the coast of Venezuela marks the Administration’s fourth such lethal military operation in what President Donald Trump has declared is a formal “armed conflict” with cartels.
“Earlier this morning, acting on President Trump’s orders, I directed a deadly, kinetic strike on a narco-trafficking vessel affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Hegseth stated on X, adding that the boat was “transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people.”
“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the individuals onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route. These strikes will persist until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
The President informed Congress this week that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, according to a confidential notice obtained by .
The notice aimed to justify the White House’s military strikes on civilian vessels in the Caribbean, which critics contend amount to illegal and extrajudicial murders. Three previous strikes resulted in a total of 17 fatalities.
Trump designated several cartels as in January and has since described these strikes as acts of self-defense to counter threats to national security.
“The President acted in accordance with the law of armed conflict to protect our country from those attempting to bring deadly poison to our shores, and he is fulfilling his promise to confront cartels and eliminate these national security threats from murdering more Americans,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said on Thursday.
