The U.S. military killed six people overnight in the 10th reported strike on a boat alleged to be involved in drug smuggling, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on social media Friday.
Hegseth said the operation targeted a vessel in the Caribbean carrying members of Tren de Aragua, a criminal group based in Venezuela that the Trump administration claims to be a “Designated Terrorist Organization.”
As he has alleged after other recent attacks, Hegseth said the boat was “known by our intelligence” to be involved drug running along a “known narco-trafficking route.” He disclosed no evidence verifying that assertion. A black-and-white overhead
video accompanying his social media post shows a boat appearing to idle in the water in the moments before it is hit with a projectile and engulfed in flames.
Law of war experts maintain that the strikes — responsible for the reported deaths of at least 43 people since the campaign began in September — are illegal because those slain by U.S. forces aren’t combatants engaged in a armed conflict with the United States but suspected criminals.
Following Trump’s second term
Following
The strike follows
two others this week that took place in the Pacific Ocean, off South America, and marked an expansion of the Trump administration’s lethal campaign against Latin American groups who Hegseth and other officials equate to militant extremists.
“If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat Al-Qaeda,” Hegseth said in the post Friday.
The overnight strike appeared to indicate the U.S. had adjusted its tactics after a strike last week left two survivors who had to be pulled from the water by a Navy rescue helicopter and held temporarily in custody aboard a warship before being
repatriated to their home countries.
