U.S. Strikes Two More Alleged Drug-Carrying Boats, This Time In The Pacific Ocean

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military launched its ninth military mission on Wednesday. Attack on a ship allegedly carrying drugsDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Trump administration expanded its jurisdiction, killing three people in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Campaign against drug trafficking in South America.

Hegseth’s post on social media hours ago stated that this attack followed another attack that killed two people in the eastern Pacific on Tuesday night. The attacks were different from seven previous US attacks. targeted the ships In the Caribbean Sea. They increased the death toll in the attacks, which began last month, to at least 37.

The attacks represent an expansion of the military’s target area as well as a shift toward South American waters, where the world’s biggest cocaine producers traffick. Hegseth’s social media posts also attracted attention Direct comparison between the war on terrorism The statement made by the USA after the September 11, 2001 attacks and the pressures of the Trump administration.

“Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people,” Hegseth said, adding: “There will be no asylum or forgiveness, only justice.”

Later Wednesday, he referred to alleged drug traffickers as “the ‘Al Qaeda’ of our hemisphere.”

Republican President Donald Trump justified the attacks by claiming that the United States intervened. “Gunfight” with drug cartels and designating criminal organizations as unlawful combatants, based on legal authority used by President George W. Bush’s administration to combat terrorism.

Asked about the latest boat attack, Trump insisted, “We have the legal authority. We are allowed to do this.” He said similar attacks could eventually be carried out from land.

“When they come by land, we will hit them very hard,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’re fully prepared to do that. And we’ll probably go back to Congress and explain exactly what we did when we come into the country.”

Lawmakers from both political parties have expressed concerns about Trump ordering military action without authorization from Congress or providing many details.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who appeared on stage with Trump, defended such attacks by saying, “If people don’t want to see drug ships blow up, stop sending drugs to the United States.”

Trump said the attacks he ordered were aimed at saving Americans, saying, “The only way you don’t feel bad about it is if you realize that every time you see it happen, you saved 25,000 lives.”

In the first short video Hegseth posted on Wednesday, a small boat half-filled with brown packages can be seen moving through the water. A few seconds into the video, the boat explodes and is seen floating motionless on the water, engulfed in flames.

In the second video, another boat is seen moving quickly before being hit by the explosion. In the video recorded after the explosion, packages can be seen floating in the water.

The US military has built an unusually large army force in the Caribbean Sea and since this summer the waters off the coast of Venezuela have been subject to Trump’s may try to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro’s faces Narcoterrorism accusation in the USA

In his posts about the strikes, Trump has repeatedly argued that illegal narcotics and fentanyl drugs carried on ships are poisoning Americans.

While the majority of overdose deaths in the United States are caused by fentanyl, the drug is transported by land from Mexico. Venezuela is a major drug transit area, but the main area of ​​cocaine trafficking is the eastern Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean.

Colombia and Peru, which have coastlines in the Eastern Pacific, are the world’s largest cocaine producers. Stuck between them is EcuadorIts world-class ports and countless sea shipping containers filled with bananas have become the perfect vehicle for drug traffickers to transport their wares.

Management refrained from prosecuting any residents The ships allegedly smuggled drugs after returning two survivors of an earlier attack to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.

Ecuadorian officials later said: They released the returned man because there was no evidence that he had committed a crime in their country.

Some Republican lawmakers have asked the White House for more clarification on the legal justification for the attack and the details of how it was carried out, while Democrats insist they violated US and international law.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was alarmed and angry about the lack of information about the attacks.

“Expanding geography further expands the lawlessness and recklessness of the American military’s use without any semblance of legal or practical justification,” Blumenthal said.

He said the way to target smuggling would be to stop boats and interrogate those on board to find the source of the drugs, “not just to destroy the smugglers at the bottom of the smuggling chain.”

The Republican-controlled Senate recently rejected Supported by Democrats war powers The decision, which was mostly along party lines and required the president to seek authorization from Congress before further military strikes.

Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said he had spoken with Rubio.

“He has carefully researched the legal ramifications and believes we are on solid ground to attack these narcoterrorists,” Kennedy said. “I trust his judgment.”

Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Kevin Freking in Washington and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.