U.S. military assets killed four people and destroyed another boat in a fourth strike against alleged drug traffickers, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Under Donald Trump’s orders, Hegseth directed “a lethal, kinetic strike on a narco-trafficking vessel affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations” off the coast of Venezuela on Friday morning, according to Hegseth.
Hegseth, in a post on X with a video of the destruction, accused the boat of “transporting substantial amounts of narcotics” to the United States “to poison our people.”
“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route,” he wrote. “These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
The attack marks the fourth such strike, which have killed more than 20 people within the last month.
A recent notice from the Pentagon to members of Congress and obtained by The Independent states that the United States is formally engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels that the Trump administration has labeled “unlawful combatants.”
The unclassified notice appears to claim extraordinary wartime powers to justify military strikes against alleged drug traffickers which have drawn legal scrutiny and allegations that the administration and defense officials committed extrajudicial murder.
According to the notice, the administration says that the president has “determined” that cartels are “nonstate armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States” and are now engaged in a “noninternational armed conflict” — or war with a non-state actor.
The administration cites a statute requiring reports to lawmakers about conflicts involving U.S. military personnel. A White House official told The Independent that the administration is complying with requirements under the National Defense Authorization Act to inform Congress of any attack involving armed forces.
Following news of the notice to Congress, White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told The Independent that the president “acted in line with the law of armed conflict to protect our country from those trying to bring deadly poison to our shores, and he is delivering on his promise to take on the cartels and eliminate these national security threats from murdering more Americans.”
Defense officials have been ordered to “conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict,” the notice says.
“The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations,” according to the notice.
It remains unclear what evidence the United States has collected to justify the attacks; the White House and defense officials have declined to share additional information about the strikes, citing national security concerns.
Legal experts and former national security officials have disputed the president’s legal authority to launch extrajudicial killings against suspected drug traffickers, raising consequential questions on both the administration’s growing conflict with Venezuela and the president’s anti-immigration agenda.
