News update
US president says American forces struck the vessel in the Southern Command’s ‘area of responsibility’.
United States President Donald Trump says American forces have carried out another strike targeting a ship that he claimed was “trafficking illicit narcotics”, killing at least three men on board the vessel.
The announcement, late on Friday, marks the third time the US has claimed a deadly attack on an alleged drug smuggling vessel this month.
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In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the “lethal kinetic strike” took place on his orders in the US Southern Command’s “area of responsibility” – a region that encompasses 31 countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage en route to poison Americans,” Trump said.
“The strike killed 3 male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel, which was in international waters. No US Forces were harmed in this strike.”
Trump posted minute-long aerial footage showing side-by-side videos of a vessel – one in colour and one in black and white – which is struck by a projectile as it moves through the water.
The video ends with the vessel seen ablaze in the water.
The US has twice this month carried out strikes against alleged drug-smuggling vessels that it claims originated in Venezuela.
On September 2, Trump announced that the US military conducted a strike on a small boat he accused of trafficking drugs for Tren de Aragua, a gang originating from the South American country, killing 11 people.
Trump described the deceased as “narcoterrorists” who were “transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States”.
On Monday, Trump then announced a strike on a second alleged Venezuelan drug cartel vessel in international waters.
He said three men were killed in the attack, and they had been “positively identified” as working for “extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists”.
US lawmakers and rights groups have raised concern over whether the strikes violate international law and the rights of the targeted individuals, who have been extrajudicially executed without due process.
Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said that “US officials cannot summarily kill people they accuse of smuggling drugs”.
In a separate incident this month, the Venezuelan government also accused the US military of “direct provocation” after it intercepted a “harmless” Venezuelan fishing boat in its exclusive economic zone.
The incidents have pushed already strained relations between Caracas and Washington to breaking point, as the Trump administration enacts a sustained pressure campaign on President Nicolas Maduro.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described the Venezuelan leader as a “direct threat” to the US’s national security over his alleged ties to drug trafficking.
Earlier this month, US media reports also suggested that the Trump administration was considering deploying F-35 stealth fighter jets to carry out attacks on drug trafficking groups inside Venezuela.
Five of the aircraft were seen landing in Puerto Rico last Saturday, as the US military bolsters its presence in the southern Caribbean, including deploying at least seven warships and one nuclear-powered submarine.
Maduro has accused the Trump administration of trying to enact “violent regime change in Venezuela and in all of Latin America”, and called on Washington to “respect sovereignty, the right to peace, [and] independence”.
