The US military has carried out another lethal strike on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Saturday. Hegseth in a social media posting said the vessel was operated by a US-designated terrorist organisation but did not name which group was targeted. He said three people were killed in the strike. It’s at least the 15th such strike carried out by the US military in the Caribbean or eastern Pacific since early September.
“This vessel — like EVERY OTHER— was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” Hegseth said in a posting on X. The US military has now killed at least 64 people in the strikes. Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.
He has asserted the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The strikes come as the Trump administration has deployed an unusually large force of warships in the region. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has decried the military operations, as well as the US military buildup, as a thinly veiled effort by the US administration aimed at ousting him from power.
