A few weeks ago, I reported that the U.S. was deploying three Aegis guided-missile destroyers (USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham, and USS Sampson) to waters off the coast of Venezuela. They were sent as part of a major counter-narcotics operation targeting Latin American drug cartels, specifically those involved in transporting fentanyl and cocaine.
Venezuela then countered by sending drones and its warships to patrol along its Caribbean coast. At the same time, the U.S. sent the USS Lake Erie (a guided missile cruiser) and the USS Newport News (a nuclear submarine) into the region.
Now, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have announced that our military sank a Venezuelan drug boat in the southern Caribbean.
The U.S. military on Tuesday struck a drug-carrying boat hailing from Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, as tensions spike between the Trump administration and the Venezuelan government.President Trump announced the strike in an unrelated Tuesday afternoon Oval Office event, saying the military had “shot out” the boat “moments ago.” He said his team had been briefed on the strike by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.Minutes later, Rubio posted on X that the military carried out a “lethal strike” in the southern Caribbean Sea. He said the “drug vessel” had departed Venezuela and “was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization.” Rubio later told reporters he believed the drugs that were allegedly carried on the boat were probably headed toward Trinidad and Tobago or “some other country in the Caribbean.”Details on the strike, including who operated the vessel, remain sparse. A senior defense official said the U.S. had conducted a “precision strike” against the vessel.
According to social media reports from Trump’s Truth Social account, 11 narcoterrorists were killed during this action.
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. 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 strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America.
It appears that a war against the drug cartels has officially been launched.
The Trump administration has taken an aggressive approach to combating Latin American drug cartels, designating many of them as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.Rubio, who begins a trip to Mexico and Ecuador on Tuesday, had previously suggested that military action against the cartels was a possibility.“There are designated narco-terrorist groups operating in the region. Some of them utilizing international airspace, international waters to transit poison into the United States. And those groups will be confronted. The president has made that clear from the time he has operated,” he said in mid-August. On Friday, Rubio visited the headquarters of US Southern Command, which has responsibility for the deployed assets.
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