The United States military recently targeted three additional vessels allegedly involved in drug smuggling, resulting in the deaths of three individuals. Several others leaped into the water, potentially surviving the incident.
A social media video captures the boats moving closely together, a rare occurrence. The military indicated that these vessels were part of a convoy navigating established drug trafficking routes and had exchanged narcotics among themselves before the military intervention.
These recent actions increase the tally of known maritime strikes to 33, with the casualty count rising to at least 110 since the beginning of September, as reported by the Trump administration.
The US Southern Command, which is responsible for operations in South America, did not specify the locations of these latest strikes.
Historically, similar operations have occurred in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
In the recent strikes, three fatalities were reported from the first boat. The occupants of the other two vessels managed to abandon ship and distance themselves before the military engaged them.
Southern Command said it immediately notified the US Coast Guard to activate search and rescue efforts.
The attacks occurred on Tuesday. Southern Command’s statement did not say whether those who jumped off the boats were rescued.
The US military struck three more boats that were allegedly smuggling drugs, killing three people while others jumped overboard and may have survived, as part of Pete Hegseth (pictured left) and Donald Trump’s war on narco-terrorists
A video posted to social media shows the boats traveling in a close formation, which is unusual, and the military said they were in a convoy along known narco-trafficking routes and ‘had transferred narcotics between the three vessels prior to the strikes’
The Pentagon declined The Daily Mail’s request for comment. The Daily Mail has reached out to US Southern Command.
President Donald Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted that the US is engaged in an ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels.
Along with the strikes, the Trump administration has built up military forces in the region as part of an escalating pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has been charged with narco-terrorism in the United States.
Meanwhile, the CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels, according to two people familiar with details of the operation who requested anonymity to discuss the classified matter.
It was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US began strikes in September, a significant escalation in the administration’s pressure campaign on Maduro’s government.
Last week, Trump revealed casually in a radio call-in interview that the US began land strikes in Venezuela, signaling an escalation in a campaign that began last fall.
The president then confirmed on Monday that on Christmas Eve the US hit ‘the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs’ along the shore of Venezuela.
The strikes against boats the Trump administration says are smuggling drugs – though has provided no evidence of such – began on September 2.
The military said three people were killed when the first boat was struck, while people in the other two boats jumped overboard and distanced themselves from the vessels before they were attacked
On November 6, Erika Palacio Fernández heard a thundering boom recorded from the shore as she saw smoke rising from the horizon in what appears to be the only verified independent video of the aftermath of Trump administration airstrikes, according to the Times.
Two days later, charred wreckage and two bodies washed up on the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia – including what the Times reports were packets with marijuana residue.
Critics of Trump’s hawkish attacks on the vessels have already claimed that the administration is engaged in war crimes and questioned the legality of the strikes off the coast of Venezuela and in international waters.
Those voices only got louder after it was revealed the September 2 attack included two separate strikes, the second of which took out two survivors who were hanging onto the wreckage of the destroyed ships.
Now, the revelations that the only wreckage from the drug boats that have washed up on shore contain evidence of weed is fueling critics further.
