The United States government, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, carried out this Tuesday (14) a new military operation against drug trafficking in the Caribbean. According to the president himself, the attack eliminated six narco-terrorists aboard a vessel near the coast of Venezuela.
In a post on the Truth Social network, Trump said that, under his authority, “the Secretary of War ordered a lethal kinetic attack against a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) conducting drug trafficking in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command – just off the coast of Venezuela.”
The American president detailed that US intelligence “confirmed that the ship was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narco-terrorist networks and was transiting a known route” of drug cartels. Trump added that the attack “was conducted in international waters” and resulted in the deaths of “six male narco-terrorists.” No American soldiers were injured during the action.
Trump’s publication was accompanied by a video in which it is possible to see a small vessel being hit by a projectile and bursting into flames.
The offensive is part of a series of operations launched by the United States since September against drug trafficking in the Caribbean. According to official records, at least five attacks have already been carried out, three of them near Venezuela and another near the Dominican Republic.
On the 5th, Trump himself had announced the elimination of another vessel in the Caribbean and suggested that the country could “soon transfer its anti-narcotics operations from sea to land”. Two days earlier, the Pentagon also confirmed an attack on vessels used to transport drugs.
The naval actions are part of the American government’s effort to combat drug trafficking networks that, according to Washington, have links with terrorist groups and governments hostile to United States policy. The Nicolás Maduro regime, in turn, has been denouncing the increase in American military presence in the Caribbean, classifying it as “a threat of attack against Venezuela”.
Trump and senior officials in his administration accuse Maduro of leading a broad regional drug trafficking network – an accusation denied by the Chavista dictatorship, which claims to be the target of a “campaign of aggression” by Washington.
