US strikes drug-smuggling boat off Venezuela coast (Source: X/@PeteHegseth)

The United States carried out another military strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean on Friday, killing four people, according to US defense secretary Pete Hegseth. “Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike,” Hegseth said in a post on X. He added that the operation “was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics headed to America to poison our people.”US President Donald Trump also weighed in on the operation, stating, “A boat loaded with enough drugs to kill 25 to 50 thousand people was stopped, early this morning off the Coast of Venezuela, from entering American Territory.”The latest strike marks at least the fourth in a series of deadly US anti-narcotics operations in the Southern Caribbean targeting suspected Venezuelan drug boats. Last month, three US strikes reportedly killed all 17 people aboard targeted vessels. President Donald Trump had recently announced that US is in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels designated as terrorist organisations. The notice was sent to multiple congressional committees, providing additional legal context for the administration’s recent strikes, which had previously faced scrutiny over their legality. On Thursday, Venezuela’s defense minister Vladimir Padrino accused the US of threatening national security after at least five American combat planes approached its coastline. Speaking in a televised address, Padrino said the country’s air defenses and the tracking systems of its largest airport “detected more than five… combat aircraft” which had “dared to approach the Venezuelan coast.” He described the incident as “a great threat” and said, “I am denouncing this military harassment in front of the world.”The Trump administration has maintained that these attacks are lawful, asserting in a confidential notice to Congress that suspected smugglers affiliated with designated terrorist cartels should be considered “unlawful combatants.