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WASHINGTON — President Trump posted a video Tuesday afternoon showing the US military bombing another alleged Venezuelan drug boat, killing its six occupants.
“Under my Standing Authorities as Commander-in-Chief, this morning, the Secretary of War, ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility — just off the Coast of Venezuela,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route. The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike. No U.S. Forces were harmed.”
The latest airstrike comes as the Trump administration seeks to increase pressure on the authoritarian socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the US government accuses of facilitating drug and people smuggling.
“Venezuela has done a couple of things very badly,” Trump said moments later while hosting a White House lunch for Argentine President Javier Milei.
“Number one, we get drugs and all of that, but we get something in a way worse … What they do very well is they send their criminals into the United States, and they send [prison gang] Tren de Aragua … they send them in by the thousands, literally. And these are the worst of all. They emptied their prisons into the United States. They empty their mental institutions into the United States.”
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It’s unclear precisely how many alleged Venezuelan boats have been attacked since the first strike was disclosed Sept. 2 by Trump, though the number is believed to range from five to seven, depending on which US officials are used as sources.
Trump notified Congress on Oct. 2 that he is waging a “non-international armed conflict” against drug cartels in the Caribbean — prompting a failed Senate push this month to prohibit the strikes.
