Eleven “terrorists” were killed in a US attack on a boat carrying drugs from Venezuela, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.
Using language more normally associated with American military action in the Middle East, the Pentagon said it had conducted a “precision strike” against the boat and released video of a vessel being blown up as it skimmed across the seas.
We “literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat. A lot of drugs in that boat,” Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “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, and you’ll get to see that after this meeting is over.”
He later said on his Truth Social platform that the 11 killed were “narco-terrorists” from the Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang.
“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” Mr Trump said.
The attack is the first of its kind since the Defence Department last month said it would send more than 4,000 sailors and marines to patrol the seas in Latin America as part of Mr Trump's operation against drug cartels.
In February, the US designated eight Latin American organised crime groups that also operate in the US as foreign terrorist organisations.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is this week visiting Mexico and Ecuador, suggested more strikes were likely.
“The days of acting with impunity and having an engine shot down or a couple drugs grabbed off a boat – those days are over,” he told reporters. “We are going to wage combat against drug cartels that are flooding American streets and killing Americans.”
The strike is likely to further inflame tensions with the government of Nicolas Maduro, which has responded to the US build-up by sending troops and vessels to Venezuela’s borders and oil centres.
US officials say they are attacking the Cartel de los Soles, a network they claim is run by Venezuelan officers with Mr Maduro’s support.
The build-up, the largest in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama, has split Latin America. Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro criticised the move as destabilising, while Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago supported it, because of drug-trafficking worries. China, Russia and Iran condemned it as interference.
Mr Trump has called Mr Maduro a terrorist and this year offered a $50 million reward for his capture.
During his first term, Mr Trump imposed sweeping sanctions, recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president and pressed for Mr Maduro’s removal.
