The White House has released a video of a lethal strike on a small vessel which the US President, Donald Trump, claimed was carrying drugs from Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea.
Sharing the video on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump alleged that the shipment was connected to a drug cartel which he claimed was led by the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.
The night-vision aerial footage shows a fast-moving boat exploding in a ball of flames after being struck by a missile. The strike killed 11 people, according to Trump.
“Please let this serve as notice to anyone even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE,” he wrote in his post on Tuesday.
The bombing marks a significant escalation in tensions between Washington and Caracas, and came a day after Maduro accused the US of attempting to carry out regime change in Venezuela. A number of US naval forces, apparently tasked with combating drug traffickers, gathered in and around the southern Caribbean.
Maduro warned he will respond in kind to any attack by warships patrolling near the Venezuelan coast, adding that he would declare a “republic in arms”, without elaborating.
How did the US Navy attack the ‘drug boat’?
The strike reportedly took place on Tuesday morning, but the US President first revealed details in a conference in the Oval Office that afternoon.
Speaking to reporters, he said the US had “just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat”.
He added: “A lot of drugs in that boat. And you’ll be seeing that, and you’ll be reading about that... These came out of Venezuela.”
Later, Trump took to social media to announce further details of the strike, which he said targeted a boat that was smuggling drugs out of Venezuela for the Tren de Aragua gang.
He described this gang as “a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere”.
He continued: “The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in international waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.”
No further details have emerged on the strike, which is the first known US military attack against alleged drug traffickers since the Trump administration began sending warships to the Caribbean last month.
Why has the US sent a naval fleet to Venezuela’s coast?
Trump has pushed for the military to tackle drug cartels that he blames for the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs into the US.
Seven US warships, along with one nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, are expected to be mobilised in the region, along with 4,500 sailors and marines, according to Reuters.
Among the warships are two Aegis guided-missile destroyers - the USS Gravely and the USS Jason Dunham - as well as the destroyer USS Sampson and the cruiser USS Lake Erie, AP reported.
The Trump administration said the mobilisation of its warships was part of a broader operation to thwart Latin American drug cartels, but officials in Caracas have questioned the US’s motives and suggested the deployment could be a pretext to a military invasion.
Experts, however, are dubious about those claims.
“The build up is a sizeable force for what’s officially a counter-narcotics mission, much more than you’d normally expect for that role,” Imdat Oner, a political analyst at Florida International University and a former Turkish diplomat who was stationed in Caracas from 2014 to 2016, told The Independent. “It’s a deliberate show of force, but not enough for a full-scale invasion.
“The posture sits in this ambiguous middle ground, enough firepower to keep Maduro guessing, but not so much that it commits the US to a full occupation.”
It is unclear how the military presence in the region will disrupt the drug trade. The ships are part of an “enhanced counter narcotics operation” to carry out drug interdiction missions in Latin America, a defence official told The Washington Post last week.
Phil Gunson, a Caracas-based political analyst for the International Crisis Group, believes the operation is “likely to be an expensive failure... since at best it will only temporarily disrupt trafficking in the eastern Caribbean”.
But he added: “There are ancillary goals, including the destabilisation of the Maduro government and possibly even its collapse. That's something US Secretary of State [Marco] Rubio has long promoted, but there appears to be no clear plan as to how to achieve it, and even less of an idea how to deal with the chaos that might ensue.”
How has Maduro responded?
The large US presence in the region has raised suspicion in Caracas that the US might take military action against Venezuela.
Maduro’s government has responded by deploying more than 15,000 troops along the Venezuelan coast and border with neighbouring Colombia, as officials urged civilians and reservists to enlist in a militia to defend the country.
“In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defence of Venezuela,” Maduro said on Monday, characterising the deployment of US warships as “an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat”.
He accused Trump of pursuing a regime change, warning that US military action against his country would “stain (Trump’s hands) with blood”.
Historic tensions between the US and Venezuela
Trump has long blamed Venezuela for a drug epidemic in his country, claiming Caracas is pouring narcotics into the US through illegal channels. Venezuela has denied the allegations, asserting that the vast majority of cocaine produced in Colombia departs through the Pacific.
Maduro is widely considered a dictator and not recognised by the US as Venezuela's legitimate leader. He was sworn in to a third six-year term in January, and he maintains he was the legitimate winner of the presidential election last year.
The opposition, however, said there is credible evidence that its candidate had won the vote, as it urged the US and other countries to ramp up pressure on Maduro to force him out of office.
The Trump administration announced a $50m reward last month for Maduro’s arrest, accusing him of being one of the world's largest drug traffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine. Maduro denies any connection to the drug trade.
Maduro was indicted by a US federal court during Trump’s first presidency in 2020 on charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine.
The bounty at the time for information that could lead to Maduro’s capture and prosecution was $15m, which was increased by the Biden administration to $25m, the same amount the US offered for the capture of Osama Bin Laden following the September 11 attacks.
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