Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has revealed that the United States has conducted a fourth “lethal, kinetic strike” on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, accusing the vessel of carrying narcotics.
In a Friday post on the social media platform X, Hegseth shared a video of the attack, which he identified as taking place near the coast of Venezuela.
The footage shows a small, narrow boat clipping across the waves before the air strike halts its momentum, leaving the vessel engulfed in flames.
Hegseth explained he directed the attack. “Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike, and no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation,” he wrote.
“The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people.”
The latest attack follows three similar US air strikes last month, the first of which took place on September 2. Eleven people were killed in that initial attack. A second and third strike — on September 15 and 19 respectively — killed three people a piece.
In each case, the administration of President Donald Trump has argued that the boats’ occupants were narcotics traffickers headed to the US, though no evidence has been provided for those assertions and the suspects have not yet been identified.
That assertion was repeated in Friday’s announcement from Hegseth, who said that the US intelligence community had identified the latest target.
He also pledged to continue carrying out air strikes on boats in the Caribbean region until the drug trafficking ended.
“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route,” Hegseth wrote. “These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
Legal experts, however, have warned that the attacks appear to violate international law, which largely prohibits extrajudicial killings outside of combat.
Traditionally, drug-trafficking has also not been considered an “attack” under the United Nations charter, which establishes a right to “self-defence if an armed attack occurs”.
But the Trump administration has sought to frame the illicit drug trade as such an armed conflict. It has also designated Latin American drug cartels and other criminal networks, including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, as “foreign terrorist organisations”.
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