The US military said on Friday that it has carried out a deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the first known attack since the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month. US Southern Command said on social media that the boat was "engaged in narco-trafficking operations" and that the strike killed two people and left one survivor, per the AP. It said it notified the Coast Guard to launch search and rescue operations for that person. A video accompanying the post announcing the latest strike shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames.
The US military has focused lately on seizing sanctioned oil tankers with connections to Venezuela, ever since the Trump administration launched an audacious raid to capture Maduro and bring him to New York to face drug-trafficking charges. With the latest military action, there have been 36 known strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in South American waters since early September that killed at least 117 people, according to announcements from the US military and President Trump. The majority of those strikes have occurred in the Caribbean Sea.
The last reported boat strikes occurred in late December, when the military said it struck five alleged drug-smuggling boats over two days, killing a total of eight people while others jumped overboard. Days later, the Coast Guard suspended its search. The US conducted a large-scale operation in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, on Jan. 3 that led to the capture of Maduro and his wife, who were then flown to New York to face federal drug-trafficking charges.
Before his capture, Maduro said the US military operations were a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power. President Trump has repeatedly said that the US strikes targeting alleged smugglers are having an enormous impact on slowing drug-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. "We've ... virtually stopped almost 100% of all drugs coming in by water," Trump said in remarks on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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