Donald Trump has previously claimed Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro is a drug-trafficking threat to the US. Washington recently announced plans to boost its presence in the waters off Venezuela to combat drug cartels.
The strikes on the vessel comes as the US is moving warships such as the USS Sampson (
US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Washington had carried out a strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug- carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela.
Trump said that the US military killed 11 people in the strike..
“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,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Initially on Tuesday Trump gave few details on the operation.
“When you leave the room, you’ll see that we just, over the last few minutes, literally, shot a boat — a drug-carrying boat,” Trump told reporters, before adding there were “a lot of drugs” on board.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the US fired a “lethal strike” against what was claimed to be a ship loaded with drugs that had departed from Venezuela.
The vessel “was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization,” Rubio claimed.
