(Washington) The United States carried out a new strike in the Eastern Pacific on Tuesday against a suspected drug trafficker boat, killing two people, announced US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Since the beginning of September, Washington has been carrying out regular air strikes in the Pacific and especially in the Caribbean against boats it presents as belonging to drug traffickers.
“Intelligence services confirmed that the boat was involved in illicit drug trafficking, that it was using a route known for drug trafficking and that it was transporting drugs. The attack was carried out in international waters of the Eastern Pacific,” the Pentagon chief said in a message published on X, accompanied by a video showing a boat engulfed in flames.
“We will find and destroy ALL ships that intend to smuggle drugs to America in order to poison our citizens. Protecting our homeland is our ABSOLUTE priority,” he added.
In total, Donald Trump’s government claimed responsibility for the destruction of 17 boats, without providing proof of links between their crews and drug trafficking.
Experts have questioned the legality of strikes in foreign or international waters, against suspects who have not been intercepted or questioned.
The American president justifies this deployment in the name of the armed conflict against gangs classified as “terrorist”.
Donald Trump accuses Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of being part of a cartel. The latter denies and denounces attempts to destabilize his power by the United States.
The latter deployed eight warships to the Caribbean and F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico. An American aircraft carrier, the largest in the world, was also dispatched to the area.
The American president, who admitted to having authorized clandestine CIA operations on Venezuelan territory, recently spoke of possible land strikes targeting “narcoterrorist” targets.
