Daijiworld Media Network – Washington

Washington, Sep 16: President Donald Trump on Monday announced that the US military had carried out another strike on a vessel allegedly carrying narcotics from Venezuela, killing three people on board, and warned that similar actions could soon target drug cartels on land.

“The strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in international waters transporting illegal narcotics—big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place,” Trump said on Truth Social, calling the cartels “a threat to U.S. national security.”

The attack comes less than two weeks after a similar U.S. strike that killed 11 people aboard a speedboat also accused of smuggling drugs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned on X that the U.S. would “track them, kill them, and dismantle their networks throughout our hemisphere—at the times and places of our choosing.”

Trump told reporters that Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, showed him footage of the strike and hinted the campaign could extend to land routes. “When they come by land we’re going to be stopping them the same way we stopped the boats,” he said.

The administration has justified the strikes as self-defense against cartels, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisting the gangs “pose an immediate threat” to the U.S. But some lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, have questioned the legality of using military force for what they view as law-enforcement purposes.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused Washington of seeking “regime change,” blasting what he described as a weekend incident in which U.S. Marines allegedly boarded a Venezuelan fishing boat. “They were looking for a military incident,” Maduro charged.

U.S. officials have linked the first strike to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, designated a terrorist organization, though they did not confirm whether Monday’s operation targeted the same group.