Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday he ordered a fourth strike on a small boat in the waters off Venezuela, according to a social media post.
“Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike,” which “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 in a post on X, which included a video showing a boat being destroyed at sea.
In his post, Hegseth said that “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.”
In his post, Hegseth offered no other details on who they were or what organization they belonged to.
The video of the strike posted online showed a small boat moving in open water when it suddenly explodes. As the smoke from the explosion clears, the boat is visible, consumed with flames, floating motionless on the water.
The strike comes less than a day after it was revealed that President Trump declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and that the United States is now in an “armed conflict” with them in a notification to Congress viewed by CBS News.
A White House official said the information was part of a report to Congress required by the National Defense Authorization Act after the U.S. military conducts an attack.
Last month, the U.S. military carried out three other deadly strikes against boats in the Caribbean that the administration accused of ferrying drugs.
With the latest strike, at least three of these operations have been carried out on vessels that originated from Venezuela.
The strikes followed a buildup of U.S. maritime forces in the Caribbean unlike any seen in recent times.
The Navy’s presence in the region — eight warships with over 5,000 sailors and Marines — has been pretty stable for weeks, according to two defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations.
On Thursday, Venezuela’s government slammed what it called an “illegal incursion” by U.S. fighter jets into an area under Venezuelan air traffic control, accusing the United States of a “provocation” that “threatens national sovereignty.”
The Venezuelan foreign and defense ministries said the planes were detected “75 kilometers from our shores,” without saying whether they violated Venezuelan airspace.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino earlier claimed five U.S. fighter jets had “dared to approach the Venezuelan coast” and had been detected by air defenses and the tracking systems of Maiquetia international airport, which serves the capital Caracas.
In their joint statement, the defense and economy ministries accused the United States of flouting international law and jeopardizing civil aviation in the Caribbean Sea.
The Pentagon hasn’t responded to a CBS News request for comment on the claims.
Mr. Trump last month dispatched 10 F-35 aircraft to Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory in the Caribbean, as part of the biggest military deployment in the area in over three decades.
Earlier this week, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he is ready to declare a state of emergency over what he called the threat of U.S. “aggression,” following the deadly U.S. strikes on suspected drug boats.
He also denied claims by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the Venezuelan military is in cahoots with drug cartels.
“I reject and repudiate the comments by Marco Rubio and I defend the morality of our soldiers,” Maduro said.
The United States is now offering a $50 million bounty for the arrest of Maduro.
contributed to this report.
