US military carries out strike on vessel carrying drugs from Venezuela, officials say
PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative photo — An F/A-18F Super Hornet takes off from the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) aircraft carrier, Aug. 26, 2025. (Official U.S. Navy photo via U.S. Defense Visual Information Distribution Service - DVIDS)
WASHINGTON - The U.S. military carried out a "lethal strike" on Tuesday in the Caribbean against a vessel from Venezuela that was carrying illegal drugs, officials said.
President Donald Trump, who first disclosed the operation, said the Pentagon would soon be providing further details.
"We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country, coming in for a long time. And we just, these came out of Venezuela," Trump told reporters at the White House.
The United States has deployed warships in the southern Caribbean with the aim of following through on Trump's pledge to crack down on drug cartels.
Tuesday's strike appeared to be the first such military operation in the region to that effect, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying the boat that was targeted had been operated by a drug-trafficking group that Washington had designated as a terrorist organization.
"The U.S. military conducted a lethal strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization," Rubio said.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by Leslie Adler and Rosalba O'Brien // REUTERS)
