President Donald Trump announced that the United States has carried out another air strike on a vessel off the Venezuelan coast, once again accusing the boat of transporting drugs.
In a social media post on Tuesday, Trump said six people were killed in the latest bombing.
“Under my Standing Authorities as Commander-in-Chief, this morning, the Secretary of War, ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO),” Trump wrote.
“The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike. No U.S. Forces were harmed.”
Trump did not offer any evidence to confirm his allegation that the boat was “conducting narcotrafficking”.
But as with past strikes, he shared an unclassified video of the bombing, which appeared to show a small boat seemingly drifting in the water, not moving, before the US missile makes impact.
This latest attack is believed to be the fifth such US bombing in the Caribbean Sea. Experts and rights groups have described the US strikes as a clear violation of International law since drug traffickers do not qualify as armed combatants.
Despite their dubious legality, the strikes have become commonplace over the last month and a half.
The first such attack took place on September 2, killing 11 people. Two further attacks took place on September 15 and 19, with three people killed in each case.
Then, a fourth strike came on October 3, with US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth claiming four fatalities aboard that boat. Tuesday’s attack brings the known death toll to 27.
[Aljazeera]
