Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth announced Friday another military strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat off Venezuela which killed four people.
This marks at least the fourth such attack, and after President Trump formally notified Congress this week that the US was entering a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels. Hegseth made clear on social media, “These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
Hegseth affirmed in a social media post that he had directed the latest strike on Trump’s orders, and released overhead drone video of the attack.
“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,” Hegseth said on X.
“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,” he added.
Trump’s rationale for the attacks in the aforementioned memo states the cartels are “non-state armed groups” whose actions smuggling drugs “constitute an armed attack against the United States”.
Hellbound and Down 