Four people were killed in a US military raid on a ship suspected of carrying drugs in international waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, defense officials said Wednesday.
He described the attack on Wednesday as a “lethal kinetic strike” on a ship operated by a “designated terrorist organization.” US Southern Command he wrote on social media.
“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was transiting along a known drug smuggling route in the eastern Pacific Ocean and was involved in drug smuggling operations,” the post said.
Military officials said that four people were killed and that no members of the US military were harmed.
A video clip published by the Southern Command showed the boat being hit and engulfed in flames and columns of smoke.
The attack is the latest of more than 20 US air strikes on alleged drug boats that have killed more than 90 people in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean in recent months. The Trump administration has praised the strikes as curbing the flow of drugs, including fentanyl The leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States Synthetic opioids are often manufactured using chemicals from China and smuggled through Mexico.
President Donald Trump signed An executive order this week designates fentanyl and its essential chemical precursors as weapons of mass destruction.
The strikes also come at a time of heightened tensions between the United States and Venezuela. Trump announced a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers in Venezuela on Tuesday, and said on Truth Social that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is using oil revenues to fund illicit operations, including “narco-terrorism.”