President Donald Trump said the U.S. military carried out a second strike on a vessel he described as transporting Venezuelan drug traffickers, killing three people, in an operation the president said took place in international waters.
Trump announced the action on his Truth Social platform Monday, saying the three "male terrorists" were killed and that no American personnel were harmed. He called the trafficked narcotics "a deadly weapon poisoning Americans" and said the strike targeted "confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela" who were "transporting illegal narcotics . . . headed to the U.S."
The president shared a short video of the strike in his post and warned traffickers that the United States was "hunting you" if they transported drugs bound for American communities. The White House said the targeted vessel carried "massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people." Administration officials said the strike followed an earlier U.S. attack in the region in early September that Trump said killed 11 suspected traffickers.
Less than 24 hours earlier, Trump had signaled the possibility of additional action, and his announcement Monday marked an escalation in pressure on Venezuela that has included a reported $50 million reward on President Nicolás Maduro, according to administration statements. Senator Marco Rubio publicly defended the strike, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was quoted by the White House as saying U.S. forces "knew exactly what they were doing and who they represented."
The administration's characterization of the operation and its targets has not been independently verified. A source familiar with the operation told the Daily Mail that U.S. forces "did not even know if there were drugs on the boat," a report that, if accurate, would conflict with official statements that the vessel was carrying large quantities of narcotics. The White House has not released evidence publicly to substantiate that the boat was carrying drugs.
The strikes have drawn questions from legal experts and critics about whether the operations comply with international law, including the use of force in international waters and the criteria for targeting individuals outside declared battlefields. The administration has framed the strikes as acts of self-defense against transnational criminal organizations it calls "narcoterrorists" that pose a threat to U.S. national security and public health.
U.S. officials did not immediately provide additional operational details, such as the precise location of the strike, the branch of the military that carried it out or intelligence used to identify the passengers. It was also unclear whether the individuals killed were Venezuelan nationals or affiliated with any particular cartel, beyond the administration's description.
The strikes mark a rapid intensification of U.S. actions aimed at disrupting drug trafficking operations allegedly linked to Venezuela and have heightened tensions between Washington and Caracas. The Venezuelan government has previously denied involvement in narcotics trafficking and condemned U.S. threats and operations.
U.S. authorities have long said that foreign-produced illicit drugs are a major contributor to overdose deaths in the United States. The Trump administration has increasingly characterized cartel operations as national-security threats deserving kinetic responses.
This is a developing story; the White House and Pentagon had not responded to requests for further comment at the time of publication.
