US military carries out strike on vessel carrying drugs from Venezuela, officials say

The United States military carried out a “lethal strike” on Tuesday in the Caribbean against a vessel from Venezuela that was carrying illegal drugs, officials said.

President Donald Trump, who first disclosed the operation, said the Pentagon would soon be providing further details.

“We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country, coming in for a long time. And we just, these came out of Venezuela,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

The United States has deployed warships in the southern Caribbean with the aim of following through on Trump’s pledge to crack down on drug cartels.

Tuesday’s strike appeared to be the first such military operation in the region to that effect, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying the boat that was targeted had been operated by a drug-trafficking group that Washington had designated as a terrorist organization.

“The US military conducted a lethal strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization,” Rubio said.