Trump announces third military strike on alleged drug vessel

U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled that US forces have conducted a third lethal military strike on an “alleged drug trafficking vessel” in international waters.

Trump announced the news on his Truth Social Platform on Friday, September 19, that a “lethal kinetic strike” was done on his orders in the U.S. Southern Command’s “area of responsibility”.

The region encompasses 31 countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean.

Adding to the details, Trump said, “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics and was transiting along a known narco-trafficking passage en route to poison Americans.”

As a result of the strike, three male narcoterrorists boarding the vessel have been killed with no harm to US Forces, Trump confirmed.

Trump also shared the aerial footage of the strike in which a small boat is clearly visible as being hit by a projectile and bursting into flames.

The “lethal strike” is the third strike of the Trump military-led campaign against drug cartels that was announced this month.

The operations that have been occurring in the past, in the international waters off South America, are said to have killed 14 people.

These ships, as reported by U.S. administration, were of Venezuelan origin, a fact virulently denied by the Venezuelan government headed by Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuela immediately denounced the move as an undeclared war. Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez alleged that the U.S. was killing people without the right to a defence, and requested the United Nations to investigate.

The tensions have increased remarkably due to the strikes, leading to military exercises and the formation of militia citizens in Venezuela.

Although the U.S. authorities, such as the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio have declared the fight against drug cartels, legal scholars and human rights organizations have cautioned that such actions will be against international law.

Opponents such as Senator Jack Reed believe that unless there are indications of an imminent threat, such use of lethal force is not legally justified and amounts to extrajudicial murder, which would be a bad precedent in applying military force instead of law enforcement.