Donald Trump said his military strike against a Venezuelan gang, which left 11 dead in international waters, was ‘justified’.
Questions of the legality of the deadly attack have been raised, but when asked why the military didn’t intercept and arrest those on board, Trump said ‘Obviously, they won’t do it again.’
‘There were massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people, and everybody fully understands that.’
Trump has said the operation was carried out in international waters, in the Caribbean, and those on board were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which is a designated foreign terrorist organisation in the US.
But they’ve provided no evidence to prove that those on board were indeed members of the gang.
Despite these worries, yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that such operations ‘will happen again’ because previous efforts to stop drug smuggling haven’t worked.
‘What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,’ Rubio said on a visit to Mexico.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Fox & Friends that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was running his country ‘as a kingpin of a drug narco-state’.
Hegseth didn’t provide more details about how the strike was planned and carried out.
Venezuela’s government questioned the legitimacy of the video, shared by Trump and his administration.
They’ve long denied that the Tren de Aragua gang has a large presence in their country.
The gang itself isn’t involved in large-scale smuggling of cocaine, according to InSight Crime, which last month published a 64-page report on the gang based on two years of research.
Despite this, the US announced plans last month to boost its maritime force in the waters off Venezuela to combat threats from Latin American drug cartels.
Maduro’s government has responded by deploying troops along Venezuela’s coast and border with neighbouring Colombia, as well as by urging Venezuelans to enlist in a civilian militia.
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