President Donald Trump announced this Monday in a post on his social media platform, Truth, that, following his orders,"United States Military Forces" had carried out "a second Kinetic Strike against positively identified and extraordinarily violent drug cartels and narco-terrorists in the Southern Command area of responsibility." In the operation, the president added in a message filled with emphatic capital letters, three men,"three male terrorists," were killed.

According to Trump, this occurred when"these Venezuelan narco-terrorists" were in international waters,"transporting illegal narcotics bound for the United States." He did not provide details on when it took place. His administration considers"these cartels" to pose a threat to "the national security, foreign policy, and vital interests of the United States."

The president also claims in that Truth that "no member" of his "armed forces was injured." And he issues a warning: he will hunt down those transporting drugs that "kill Americans." "They've done it," he writes,"for decades." "But not anymore," the Republican president declares.

Trump's announcement comes almost two weeks after an initial military strike against a Venezuelan vessel suspected of carrying drugs. The little known information about that operation has sparked a debate in Washington over its legality. A group of senators from both parties demanded official explanations in a letter sent to Trump, while human rights advocates denounced that"this Administration is normalizing extrajudicial killings." At the time, the death toll was 11.

That intervention took place on September 2. Trump made the announcement while speaking to reporters at the White House. He also asserted, as he did this Monday, that the boat's occupants had been positively identified as drug traffickers from the Tren de Aragua organization. They were headed, he said, to the United States. The following day, he added that communications had been intercepted confirming this, although these have not been made public.

The Trump administration's justification for carrying out these attacks is that they are an act of self-defense against drug traffickers from a group included on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations since last February. It also claims that this alleged drug trafficking poses"an imminent threat" to the United States.

Trump believes he has the right to order military strikes in the face of threats like these without having to seek congressional approval.

Maduro's complaint

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro believes it's all an excuse to invade his country and overthrow Chavismo, while the Trump administration accuses him of leading these drug trafficking networks. Caracas maintains that the 11 men who were traveling aboard the boat a couple of weeks ago were not drug traffickers.

This Monday, before the second attack became known, Maduro held a press conference in which he described the first attack as"an atrocious crime" that violated U.S. and international law. He complained that if the crew members were indeed criminals, they should have been arrested and tried. This, he asserted, was"a military attack against civilians who were not at war or threatening any country militarily." According to Maduro, the United States is not seeking to combat drug trafficking, but rather"regime change in exchange for oil."

He also spoke of a separate incident involving a fishing boat. “That is an embarrassment… Who gave that order?” said the Venezuelan president, who stated on Saturday that a Navy destroyer boarded and held a tuna boat for eight hours in waters that Caracas considers part of its Exclusive Economic Zone. “What they were looking for was a military incident. The incident they were looking for to attack us. We have not fallen for provocations, nor will we fall for them,” Maduro added.

Meanwhile, the United States has deployed eight military ships and a submarine to the Caribbean Sea, under the guise of combating drug trafficking. On Sunday, upon returning from a weekend golfing trip to his Bedminster, New Jersey, course, Trump responded to a question about whether he foresees further attacks against Venezuela. “We’ll see what happens. Certainly, there aren’t many ships out there since the first attack, and then, to a lesser extent, the second,” he said, perhaps referring to the military operation announced Monday. “We’re seeing almost no ships, which is good.”

The country is in the midst of the worst drug crisis in its history, largely caused by fentanyl trafficking, which has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in recent years. During this time, a record 110,000 deaths have been recorded, three-quarters of which are attributed to the powerful opiate.