US forces reportedly carried out a strike on a vessel suspected of drug smuggling off the coast of Venezuela on Friday, October 3, resulting in four fatalities.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the strike in a post on X, stating that it brings the total number of such US attacks to at least four, leaving at least 21 people dead. An accompanying video shared by the Defense Secretary showed the boat speeding across the waves before being consumed by smoke and flames.
“Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,” the Pentagon chief wrote. He asserted that the strike “was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics — headed to America to poison our people.” Hegseth vowed that “These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
President Donald Trump amplified the message on his Truth Social platform, posting the same video and claiming that “a boat loaded with enough drugs to kill 25 TO 50 THOUSAND PEOPLE was stopped… from entering American Territory.”
The latest military action follows the Trump administration’s notification to Congress that it considers the United States to be engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. The letter, described as a legal justification for at least three previous strikes, stated that the president had determined these cartels are “non-state armed groups,” designated them as terrorist organizations, and found that their actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States.” The Pentagon’s notice also referred to suspected smugglers as “unlawful combatants.”
The US has not publicly released evidence to support its assertion that the targets of its strikes are confirmed drug smugglers, and some experts have argued that the summary killings are illegal even if they target narcotics traffickers.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his regional allies swiftly condemned the attack. Maduro called the US actions “an armed aggression to impose regime change, to impose puppet governments, and to steal Venezuela’s oil, gas, gold and all natural resources.” Speaking at an event in Caracas, Maduro ordered the mobilization of reservists and militias “if it is necessary to move from unarmed combat to armed combat.”
The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), a leftist Latin American bloc, condemned the raid as an “illegal incursion” by US fighter jets and a violation of international law. ALBA argued that the repeated US strikes aim to destabilize the region and instill fear.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a fierce critic of Trump’s policy of striking alleged traffickers, argued that the true drug traffickers reside in the US, Europe, and Dubai. He wrote on X that “There were poor Caribbean youths on that boat,” adding that sinking vessels that could be intercepted instead “violates the universal judicial principal of proportionality.”
Tensions between the United States and Venezuela have been high, exacerbated by the deployment of multiple American warships in the region. Venezuela recently reported detecting an “illegal incursion” by five US fighter jets flying off its shores, which Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino denounced as a “provocation.” Last month, Trump dispatched 10 F-35 aircraft to Puerto Rico as part of the biggest military deployment in the area in over three decades.
