The U.S. military has conducted a fresh strike on a ship off the Venezuelan coast, confirmed by President Donald Trump on Truth Social.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO (Designated Terrorist Organization) route,” said the President, adding that the strike was conducted in international waters and that six men were killed.
Trump, as well as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, posted grainy footage of the strike on social media. The 34-second clip shows a seemingly small vessel in the water soon engulfed in flames after the airstrike.
A total of 27 men have now been killed in a series of strikes carried out by the U.S. on such vessels since early September.
Tuesday’s strike was the fifth of its kind on vessels, all accused by the Trump Administration of carrying narcotics bound for America. In September, 17 men were killed across three incidents announced by Trump.
On October 3, Hegseth confirmed a further strike that killed four men onboard.
“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,” said Hegseth then, in a post on X.
The Pentagon is yet to provide evidence of the boats carrying narcotics or belonging to terrorist organizations for any of the strikes in question, and some experts have argued that the attacks are not legal under either U.S. or international law.
TIME has reached out to the Department of War and the U.S. Navy for comment.
Trump claimed that the vessel targeted on Sept. 2 was “positively identified” as belonging to the Venezuelan cartel Tren de Aragua, which the President said operates directly under President Nicolas Maduro.
Legal experts suggest that the cartel would need to be in an active war with the U.S. in order for military action against it. The Trump Administration has since provided a notice to Congress claiming that the U.S. is involved in an armed conflict with the DTO’s that have been targeted in the Caribbean over recent weeks.
The notice, obtained by CNN, determines that those onboard the vessels struck by the U.S. military are “unlawful combatants”, therefore clearing the Department of War to strike the vessels.
Multiple members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, are growing frustrated with the lack of information and the Administration’s strategy regarding the strikes, a number of sources have told NBC.
Lawmakers are reportedly unhappy with briefings on the strikes, unable to clarify the legal basis of the strikes, and the refusal from Pentagon officials to provide unedited video footage of such incidents.
The latest incident comes as the State Department continues to offer a $50m reward for the arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro. The reward was increased by $25m in August, and the State Department accuses Maduro of leading and supporting Venezuelan cartels.
Maduro’s political opponent María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 10 for her democracy advocacy in Venezuela. Machado pipped Trump to the award, who had relentlessly campaigned to win the prize himself, alongside a number of political allies including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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