The United States carried out a fourth air strike on a small boat in the Caribbean Sea, killing four people, U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday — a move the administration says targeted a vessel carrying narcotics and forms part of a broader campaign against drug-trafficking networks in the region.
Hegseth posted video of the strike on X and said the operation, which he said he directed, occurred in international waters off the coast of Venezuela and left the boat ablaze.
Hegseth described those killed as “male narco-terrorists” and said no U.S. forces were harmed. President Donald Trump also weighed in, repeating claims that the boat was laden with drugs and that the strikes were necessary to stop narcotics destined for the United States. The administration has not released independent evidence publicly verifying the presence of drugs or identifying the dead.
The latest strike follows three similar operations in September. The initial attack on Sept. 2 killed 11 people, according to U.S. statements; subsequent strikes on Sept. 15 and Sept. 19 were reported to have killed three people each, bringing the total fatalities from the series of strikes to more than 20. The campaign marks an unusual and sharp escalation of U.S. military action in the southern Caribbean.
The White House and Pentagon have sought to justify the strikes by arguing that the actions fall within the president’s authority to defend the United States, and by framing the illicit-drug trade as a form of armed aggression. In a confidential memo to Congress, the administration has asserted the United States is engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels — a designation that, officials say, provides legal grounds for military operations — but which has drawn fierce criticism from legal experts and some lawmakers.
Legal scholars, human-rights groups and foreign leaders have warned the strikes risk violating international law and U.S. constitutional limits on the use of force. Critics say drug trafficking traditionally does not constitute an “armed attack” under the UN Charter and that the administration’s broad labels for cartels and their members lack clear legal restraint. Several regional governments, including Venezuela’s, condemned the action as an unlawful use of force; Colombia’s president publicly denounced the strike, arguing those killed were not terrorists.
The operations have also prompted immediate geopolitical and military responses. Venezuela condemned the strikes and ordered reinforcements along its coast, while U.S. forces have increased deployments in the southern Caribbean, including fighter jets and additional naval assets, the Pentagon said. Officials in Washington have defended the posture as necessary to interdict narcotics flows, even as they face mounting scrutiny at home and abroad.
Human-rights advocates and some former military lawyers have warned of a slippery slope if the executive branch is allowed to use lethal force extraterritorially on the basis of drug-trafficking allegations without transparent evidence or Congressional authorization. “If it can happen at sea, it can happen anywhere,” one critic remarked, encapsulating concerns that the policy sets a broad precedent for unilateral strikes.
Source: Agencies, AL Jazeera
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