President Donald Trump has ordered the military to attack vessels he claims smuggle drugs in the region
Six people have been killed in a US strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, in what War Secretary Pete Hegseth has described as an anti-drug smuggling operation.
The attack marks the latest in a series of American military actions across the Caribbean and Pacific in what President Donald Trump calls a campaign to eliminate narcotics trafficking from Venezuela and Colombia. Both nations have strongly rejected the claims.
The Department of War carried out a “lethal kinetic strike” on a Tren de Aragua (TdA) vessel in neutral waters overnight on Thursday, Hegseth wrote on X on Friday. TdA is a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela.
“If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat Al-Qaeda,” he added, promising to continue to “hunt down” and “kill” more alleged traffickers.
Overnight, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO), trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea. The vessel was known by our… pic.twitter.com/lVlw0FLBv4
— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) October 24, 2025
Just a day earlier, Trump touted what he called a great success in the US military’s efforts against alleged Venezuelan “drug boats,” claiming that the flow of narcotics coming in by sea has fallen to “like 5% of what they were a year ago.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: rt.com
