A vessel suspected of transporting illegal drugs was attacked Thursday by U.S. forces in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said.

As a result of the operation, six people died whom the US authorities accuse of belonging to drug trafficking organizations belonging to the Aragua Train .

Overnight, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike against a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) that traffics narcotics in the Caribbean Sea.

Our intelligence had information that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting a known drug trafficking route, and was transporting narcotics. Six male narcoterrorists were on board during the attack, which took place in international waters and was the first nighttime attack.

All six terrorists were killed, and no U.S. forces were harmed in this attack. If you are a narco-terrorist trafficking drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you as we treat al-Qaeda. Day or night, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you.