Washington — The U.S. army on Tuesday struck a drug-carrying boat hailing from Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio mentioned, as tensions spike between the Trump administration and the Venezuelan authorities.
President Trump introduced the strike in an unrelated Tuesday afternoon Oval Workplace occasion, saying the army had “shot out” the boat “moments in the past.” He mentioned his group had been briefed on the strike by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers.
Minutes later, Rubio posted on X that the army carried out a “deadly strike” within the southern Caribbean Sea. He mentioned the “drug vessel” had departed Venezuela and “was being operated by a chosen narco-terrorist group.”
Particulars on the strike, together with who operated the vessel, stay sparse.
The strike got here after the U.S. confirmed final month that the Navy would increase its presence close to Venezuela, deploying three warships to the waters off the South American nation as a part of an anti-drug cartel mission. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro referred to as the ships an “extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and completely prison and bloody risk.”
The Trump administration has accused Maduro’s authorities — a longtime U.S. foe — of working with drug cartels to site visitors narcotics to the USA.
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