‘These Strikes Will Continue’: War Secretary Confirms New Lethal Attack On Venezuela-Linked Vessel
Escalating military action against alleged drug traffickers, Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday morning that U.S. forces had carried out another lethal strike in the Caribbean, killing four people aboard a vessel confirmed to be carrying narcotics from Venezuela.
The strike is the latest in a series of attacks that have significantly heightened tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela, bringing the total death toll from confirmed U.S. boat strikes to at least 17 in recent weeks, according to various reports.
Secretary Hegseth detailed the operation on X, “Earlier this morning, on President Trump’s orders, I directed a lethal, kinetic strike on a narco-trafficking vessel affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike, and no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation.”
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“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. 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. These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!,” Hegseth concluded.
The aggressive operation was announced just as officials within the Department of War are reportedly drawing up plans for an even more significant escalation: drone attacks on alleged drug traffickers inside Venezuela itself.
According to the White House, these drone strikes would target traffickers’ leadership, membership, and drug labs, and could begin within a matter of weeks, though President Trump has yet to approve the action. A senior administration official told the broadcaster that the president is “prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country.”
In Caracas, the military escalation is being framed as an overt prelude to regime change. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil Pinto recently told the United Nations that the U.S. has an “illegal and completely immoral military threat hanging over our heads,” while President Nicolás Maduro has denied any role in drug trafficking, calling the accusations a “flimsy pretense” for trying to seize the country’s oil and gas wealth.
The U.S. military buildup and corresponding strikes come amid reports that Washington and Caracas are conducting indirect discussions through Middle Eastern intermediaries. However, the U.S. continues to maintain a $50 million bounty on Maduro, whom Attorney General Pam Bondi has accused of being “one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world.”
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