President Donald Trump has ordered the military to attack vessels he claims smuggle drugs in the region

Six people have been killed in a US strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, in what War Secretary Pete Hegseth has described as an anti-drug smuggling operation.

The attack marks the latest in a series of American military actions across the Caribbean and Pacific in what President Donald Trump calls a campaign to eliminate narcotics trafficking from Venezuela and Colombia. Both nations have strongly rejected the claims.

The Department of War carried out a "lethal kinetic strike" on a Tren de Aragua (TdA) vessel in neutral waters overnight on Thursday, Hegseth wrote on X on Friday. TdA is a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela.

"If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat Al-Qaeda," he added, promising to continue to "hunt down" and "kill" more alleged traffickers.

Just a day earlier, Trump touted what he called a great success in the US military's efforts against alleged Venezuelan "drug boats," claiming that the flow of narcotics coming in by sea has fallen to "like 5% of what they were a year ago."

He added that "land is going to be next," without providing further details on when and where US attacks could fall.

BothCaracasandBogotahave argued that the US operations in the region are the beginning of an attempted resource grab, rather than a counter-smuggling effort.

The US operation "is not about drug trafficking... they need oil [and] gas," Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro told RT last month, arguing that Washington was interested in the Latin American country's vast energy and mineral reserves.

(RT.com)