President Donald Trump says the US has carried out a strike against a drug-carrying vessel in the southern Caribbean, killing 11 “narcoterrorists“.
He posted on social media that Tuesday’s US military operation had targeted members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Trump said the vessel was in international waters and was transporting illegal narcotics bound for the US.
The Trump administration has ratcheted up military and political pressure against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in recent weeks, including through a $50m (£37m) reward for information leading to his arrest on drug-trafficking charges. Maduro has vowed Venezuela would fight any attempted US military intervention.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said that US forces had “shot out” a “drug-carrying boat” in the vicinity of Venezuela.
“A lot of drugs in that boat,” he said.
Trump added he had been briefed on the incident by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine.
Later the president posted on his Truth Social platform: “Earlier this morning, on my Orders, US Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.”
“The strike resulted in the death of 11 terrorists in action,” he added. This strike didn’t hurt any US forces. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”
His post was accompanied by a grainy aerial video showing a motor boat speeding across choppy waters before it bursts into flames.
In a social media post, Venezuela’s communications minister, Freddy Ñáñez, suggested, without evidence, that the video shared by Trump was created with artificial intelligence.
Although its verification process was still in progress, the Reuters news agency wrote that its initial examinations of the video had not revealed any indications of manipulation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X that “today the US military conducted a lethal strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organisation”.