Three people died Thursday when the US military attacked the boat they were traveling on in the waters of the Caribbean Sea, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed. With the latter, 18 boats have already sunk in just two months as part of what the Donald Trump administration defines as operations against “narcoterrorism”, extrajudicial attacks that have already caused the death of a total of 69 civilians.
“Today, by order of President Trump, the War Department carried out a lethal kinetic strike against a ship operated by a designated terrorist organization,” Hegseth announced on his profile on the social network X. In the message, he confirmed the deaths of three men, whom he called “narcoterrorists.” The Secretary of Defense then stressed that the attack occurred in international waters.
As has been customary since the start of these attacks in September, Hegseth assured that the three dead, whom he does not identify, “were trafficking narcotics.” Nor did he name the organization that allegedly controlled the boat or specify the type of drugs he believed it was carrying.
“The naval attacks against narco-terrorists will continue until they cease their activities of poisoning the American people. (…) To all the narco-terrorists who threaten our homeland: if you want to stay alive, stop trafficking drugs. If you continue trafficking deadly drugs, we will kill you,” he threatened.
International experts have denounced that these attacks and the deaths of their occupants could constitute extrajudicial executions, while the United Nations assures that there is “no legal justification” for carrying out these attacks in the Caribbean and the Pacific. He also warned that based on the “very little information” provided by Washington, none of the victims of the attacked ships “posed an imminent threat”, which is why the UN called for an investigation in a “swift, independent and transparent” manner to prosecute those who broke the law.
The United States maintains a huge deployment in international waters of the Caribbean, bordering the Venezuelan coast: a dozen ships, including a submarine, and more than 10,000 troops. They will be joined in the coming days by the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, the largest and most modern in the country’s fleet, as US President Donald Trump warns of a new phase of the operation that would include ground actions.
Initially, the Trump administration justified these operations as essential to combat drug cartels, with which the White House considers it to be in an “armed conflict.”
But Trump has gradually hinted that an attempt to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro may be behind this campaign. His government accuses the Venezuelan president of being part of the leaders of drug trafficking, claims that Venezuela is a narco-state and has doubled the reward for the capture of the Chavista leader to 50 million dollars. The president of the United States has authorized the CIA to carry out secret missions in the Caribbean country and says several times that the current campaign against the boats will move to a “second phase” on the mainland.
In an interview given to the program 60 minutes on the CBS network broadcast this Sunday, Trump believes Maduro’s days leading Venezuela are numbered. Asked if there will be a war between his country and the Caribbean nation, the president replied: “I doubt it. I don’t believe it. But Venezuela has behaved very badly towards us, and not just on the drug issue.”
Hours before the US Secretary of Defense announced the latest strike against an alleged drug trafficker, the US Senate had rejected a resolution that would have prevented the Trump administration from carrying out attacks on Venezuelan territory without the approval of Congress, the institution responsible for declaring war.
