President Donald Trump said that the U.S. has carried out yet another strike on a vessel allegedly carrying “illicit narcotics.”
Trump announced the strike via Truth Social on Friday evening, writing that three men were killed and that the vessel was in international waters. No U.S. forces were harmed in the strike, he added. Trump attached footage of the strike to his post.
“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 wrote. “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans.”
It’s unclear exactly where the boat was located. The U.S. Southern Command area includes the Caribbean Sea and South America.
This is the third strike Trump has ordered against an alleged drug vessel this month.
On September 2, Trump said that the U.S. struck a drug-carrying vessel in the Caribbean, allegedly operated by the Tren de Aragua gang. The strike killed 11 people on board, Trump said. Authorities in Venezuela have said the 11 killed in the attack were not connected to the Tren de Aragua gang.
Then, Trump announced Monday that U.S. forces struck a vessel from Venezuela allegedly carrying narcotics on its way to the U.S. The strike killed three “terrorists,” Trump said.
It’s unclear exactly what evidence the U.S. had that the three vessels struck this month were carrying narcotics. The Pentagon declined to provide additional information when contacted by The Independent.
When asked to provide evidence that the vessel targeted in Monday’s strike was carrying drugs, Trump responded that “we have proof,” according to CNN.
“All you have to do is look at the cargo that was spattered all over the ocean, big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place,” he said.
Officials who were briefing Congressional staff also did not provide conclusive evidence that the targets of the September 2 strike were members of Tren de Aragua, CNN reported last week, citing a top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee and three people familiar with the briefing.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has accused the Trump administration of using the strikes to “intimidate and seek regime change,” the Associated Press reports.
Many Democratic lawmakers have pushed back on the strikes. Senators Adam Schiff and Tim Kaine filed a resolution Friday — just hours before Trump announced the latest strike — seeking to end the hostilities.
“Blowing up boats in the Caribbean without any legal authority risks dragging the United States into another war, and provoking attacks against American citizens,” Schiff said in a statement after Trump announced the latest strike.
Senator Jack Reed, the top-ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, also said Monday that Trump’s strikes “are an outrageous violation of the law and a dangerous assault on our Constitution.”
“No president can secretly wage war or carry out unjustified killings – that is authoritarianism, not democracy,” he said.
Shortly after the first strike this month, the White House notified Congress that Trump was acting within his constitutional authority, CBS News reports.
“I directed these actions consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority as commander in chief and chief executive to conduct United States foreign relations,” the notification reads.
