President Donald Trump released images on Tuesday of the military operation in which U.S. forces sank a vessel belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal group in international waters in the Caribbean. In a post on the Truth Social platform, Trump confirmed that the operation was carried out against identified members of the organization designated as a foreign terrorist organization and linked to the Nicolás Maduro regime.
“This morning, under my orders, U.S. military forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua narco-terrorists in the Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) area of responsibility,” the U.S. president wrote in his post.
Trump noted that Tren de Aragua is officially designated as a foreign terrorist organization, “ operating under the control of Nicolás Maduro and responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and acts of violence and terror in the United States and throughout the Western Hemisphere.”
According to the message, the incident took place in international waters when the group members were transporting narcotics bound for the United States."The attack resulted in the deaths of 11 terrorists. No U.S. forces were injured in this operation," Trump said.
The shared video shows footage of the naval operation carried out by Southern Command units. So far, Washington has not disclosed the exact location of the attack or details about the equipment used.
The president closed his message with a warning: “Let this serve as a warning to anyone even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. Be careful! .”
Sources from the US Department of Defense informed the EFE news agency that troops carried out a “precision strike” against a vessel operated by an organization identified as “narco-terrorist” as part of an anti-drug operation near Venezuela.
On Tuesday afternoon, Trump praised Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine for informing him of the attack on the drug-laden vessel, allegedly originating from Venezuela. The incident was confirmed shortly after by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a message on X.
“We have a large amount of drugs coming into our country for a long time, and they are coming from Venezuela. They are coming out of Venezuela in large quantities. A lot of things are coming out of Venezuela, so we took out the ship,”Trump said Tuesday at the White House.
Rubio reiterated: “As the President of the United States reported moments ago, today the United States military carried out a lethal attack in the southern Caribbean against a drug vessel that had departed Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization.”
According to official information, the United States has deployed eight missile-equipped military ships and a nuclear-powered submarine to areas of the Caribbean Sea near the coast of Venezuela to combat drug trafficking destined for the United States.
In reaction, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro declared that his country faces the “greatest threat ever seen” in America “in the last hundred years” and assured that Venezuela would declare itself “in arms” if it “were attacked.”
The operation comes after several days of growing tensions between Washington and Caracas, which severed diplomatic relations in 2019. Maduro declared a state of maximum alert to defend himself against what he considers military threats from the United States. The Trump administration accuses Maduro of leading a drug cartel and decided on the naval deployment in the southern Caribbean under the guise of an anti-drug operation.
