(The Hill) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said late Thursday that the U.S. military took out another alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean, killing three “narco-terrorists.”
Hegseth said the vessel was operated by a designated terrorist organization and was blown up in international waters. It is unclear which terrorist group Hegseth was referring to. No U.S. troops were harmed in the operation.
“As we’ve said before, vessel strikes on narco-terrorists will continue until their the poisoning of the American people stops,” Hegseth said in a post on social platform X. “To all narco-terrorists who threaten our homeland: if you want to stay alive, stop trafficking drugs. If you keep trafficking deadly drugs—we will kill you.”
The U.S. military has now conducted 17 strikes since the campaign began in early September, killing at least 70 people. The attacks have taken place in the Caribbean Sea and in the Eastern Pacific.
The strikes have prompted pushback from Democrats and some Republicans as lawmakers have asked the administration to provide more information about the targets, the legality of the operation and how boats are selected.
The administration has provided at least 13 briefings, including a classified one on Wednesday in the Senate that was led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Hegseth. The briefing did not tamp down concerns of some Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, while others, including Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told reporters that lawmakers got a general explanation of how targets are selected, but was still left with questions about the “precise structure.”
“What happens when there’s somebody nearby who may be innocent? These are the things that the [Defense Department] is used to thinking about, and we still haven’t gotten into that level of granularity. So again, I’m not too worried that they’re going to take out a fishing boat, because our intelligence community is very, very good, but I’m not confident that we know precisely who are in those boats and why they’re there,” Himes said on Wednesday.
As the administration has continued with the boat strikes, the DOD has built a massive military presence in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility in light of ramped-up tensions between Washington and Caracas, Venezuela.
Trump and other officials have called Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro an “illegitimate leader” and the president said during his recent interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that Maduro’s days are numbered.
Trump has indicated at times that he could order the U.S. to conduct strikes inside Venezuela, but has not done so yet.
Earlier on Thursday, GOP senators in a 51-49 vote blocked a war powers resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) that would have blocked the president from potentially conducting military strikes inside Venezuela without the authorization of Congress.
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