President Donald Trump led an overnight US attack on a suspected Tren de Aragua ship in the Caribbean Sea, killing six suspected narco-terrorists, officials say.
“Overnight, at the direction of President Trump, the War Department conducted a deadly kinetic attack on a ship belonging to Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO), which traffics narcotics in the Caribbean Sea,” War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on X, sharing an accompanying video of the attack. “It was known to our intelligence services that the vessel was involved in the illicit smuggling of narcotics, was transiting a known narcotics trafficking route and was carrying narcotics.”
“Six male narco-terrorists were on board the ship during the attack, which was carried out in international waters – and the first attack was at night,” he said. “All six terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were injured in this attack.”
HEGSETH SAYS US HAVE STRUGGLED ANOTHER STRIKE IN THE EASTERN PACIFIC TARGETING ALLEGED NARCO TRAFFICKER
This infrared image released by the War Department shows a suspected Tren de Aragua ship in international waters of the Caribbean Sea before a U.S. overnight attack that killed six suspected narco-terrorists, officials said. (Department of War/Pete Hegseth)
Hegseth further warned: “If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs into our hemisphere, we will treat you as we treat [al Qaeda]. Day or NIGHT we will map your networks, track down your people, hunt you down and kill you.”
The strike marks the tenth operation against suspected drug traffickers since Trump returned to office. The president has made combating the country’s drug crisis a central policy focus.
The first strike took place on September 2 and since then 43 suspected drug traffickers have been killed and two have survived, officials said. The pace of strikes has increased from one every few weeks in September to three so far this week.
The operations mainly targeted ships connected to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua network. The missions ranged from attacks on smuggling boats to the destruction of a submarine, with images of various operations by Hegseth and Trump released on social media.
TRUMP APPROVES MILITARY ACTION AGAINST LATIN AMERICAN CARTELS CLASSIFIED AS TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS
War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the latest strike on Friday morning. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
When reporters asked Trump on Thursday whether he would ask Congress to declare war on the cartels, he said that was not the plan.
“I think we’re just going to kill people who are bringing drugs into our country, okay? We’re going to kill them, you know? They’ll be dead in a minute,” Trump said during a White House roundtable with homeland security officials.
Trump this month declared drug cartels unlawful combatants and said the US was engaged in an “armed conflict” with them.
Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle questioned Trump’s decision to launch the operations without first consulting lawmakers. Several Democrats warn that the strikes could violate international law.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has also expressed concern about killing people without due process and the possibility of killing innocent people.
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An infrared image released by the War Department shows debris and smoke after a nighttime attack on a suspected Tren de Aragua ship in international waters of the Caribbean Sea. Officials said six suspected narco-terrorists were killed during the operation. (Ministry of War)
In a recent interview, Paul cited Coast Guard statistics showing that a significant percentage of boats boarded on suspicion of drug trafficking are innocent.
The senator has also argued that if the administration plans to go to war with Venezuela as it has targeted boats in recent weeks that it says transport drugs for the Venezuela-affiliated Tren de Aragua gang, it should seek a declaration of war from Congress.
