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President Trump said on Friday that he ordered another strike on a ship in the Caribbean allegedly transporting narcotics, the third such attack this month.
“On my Orders, the Secretary of War ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Trump wrote in a Friday evening post on Truth Social, claiming intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics.
The president also said the vessel was traveling along a “known” narcotrafficking passage in an effort to “poison Americans.”
“The strike killed 3 male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel, which was in international waters,” Trump wrote. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. The deadly attack marks the third operation in September.
Trump ordered, and the military carried out, similar strikes on Sept. 2 and Sept. 15 in the Caribbean as part of Trump’s efforts to curb fentanyl trafficking. Trump says the boats are connected to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, now designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. The U.S. has said the three strikes have resulted in 17 deaths.
Venezuelan authorities say the ship struck by American forces on Sept. 2 was not carrying gang members.
Experts have accused the administration of violating international law by effectively executing individuals on the boat without due process or any proof of an immediate threat to the country.
Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Tim Kaine (Va.) this week introduced a new resolution under the War Powers Act that would stop U.S. military strikes against boats from Venezuela.
“Congress alone holds the power to declare war,” Schiff said Friday in a statement. “And while we share with the executive branch the imperative of preventing and deterring drugs from reaching our shores, blowing up boats without any legal justification risks dragging the United States into another war and provoking unjustified hostilities against our own citizens.”
