11 ‘terrorists’ killed in U.S. military strike on drug vessel: Trump

Noman Sabit: The strike, which took place on Tuesday morning, hit a boat with members of the Tren de Aragua, a transnational gang from Venezuela, a group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government, according to the president.

“Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

“TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere,” the president added in the post where he shared a 29-second video of the strike.

The strike took place while the boat was in international waters and was transporting “illegal” narcotics. It was en route to the U.S.

No member of the U.S. forces was injured in the strike, Trump said.

“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” Trump said. “BEWARE!”

Trump mentioned the strike earlier at White House on Tuesday, saying the U.S. “literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs in that boat.”

“We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country, coming in for a long time. And these came out of Venezuela. And coming out very heavily from Venezuela. A lot of things are coming out of Venezuela. So we took it out,” the president said.

Rubio confirmed the military’s engagement on social platform X, writing that the “lethal” strike was launched in the southern Caribbean against a “drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization.”

A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday that the U.S. military conducted a “precision strike” against the vessel and that more information will be “made available at a later time.”

The strike on the boat comes as the administration has bolstered its maritime force in the Caribbean to mitigate the threats from Latin American drug cartels. The U.S. deployed at least seven ships, a nuclear-powered submarine and more than 4,500 Marines near Venezuela in recent days. The deployment was slammed by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who called it “an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat.”

“In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defense of Venezuela,” Maduro said at a press conference on Monday.

The administration has not signaled that it is preparing a land invasion in Venezuela. Maduro has ordered some 15,000 troops to the border of Colombia, its neighbor, to combat drug trafficking. The administration has billed the deployment of ships and personnel as an anti-drug trafficking operation, which has gotten backing from Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbor. Trump has accused the Latin American drug cartels of bolstering the flow of fentanyl and other drugs into the U.S.

The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously said that Trump is “prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice.” The USS Gravely and the USS Jason Dunham, two Aegis guided-missile destroyers, are already in the Caribbean, a U.S. defense official told The Associated Press. Maduro warned Monday that the administration’s operation in Venezuela will “stain” Trump’s “hands with blood.”