The US military has “remained stance” to launch further strikes at a drug cartel that has already killed 17 people, a Pentagon notification said.
Trump says US troops killed 11 cartel suspects on a Caribbean strike
President Donald Trump has announced that the US forces killed 11 Tren de Aragua members on a naval strike during the escalation of their counter-drug operations.
President Donald Trump has determined that the US is in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels, according to a notice sent by the Pentagon to some members of Congress this week.
The final fatal strike on the boat that killed three people on September 15 was “limited in scope, but the US military remains stance to carry out military operations where necessary to prevent further death or injury to American citizens by eliminating the threat posed by these designated terrorist groups,” the text in the notification obtained by the United States said.
The Trump administration designated several drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations in February. In recent months, the military has integrated a large amount of naval firepower in the Caribbean, including four naval missile guided destroyers and amphibious attack ships.
The drug cartels “now cross the border and are carrying ongoing attacks throughout the Western Hemisphere,” so Trump has determined they are “non-state armed groups” and said “their actions constitute an armed attack on the United States.”
The military launched its first deadly strike on a boat off the coast of Venezuela on September 2, killing 11 people on September 2.
The notice said Trump had directed the military to cast boats “in accordance with armed conflict laws.” Human rights advocates and former military lawyers accused the strike of being illegal and unconstitutional, saying they amounted to extrajudicial killings. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon have released evidence that the boats they attacked and the people killed were either human trafficking drugs or were affiliated with the cartel.
Trump has not announced new approvals to use military force to clear military operations in Congress, but bills granting him the authority to do so are circulating in Congress, The New York Times reported in September.
The Times previously reported that Trump had signed a secret order in July allowing the military to use deadly forces against the cartel. The administration has not made the order public either.
The strike also gave speculation that the Trump administration may be preparing to launch a military operation on Venezuelan territory. Drug trafficking experts say Trump and his officials have urged action to stop the flow of fentanyl, but the Venezuelan cartel accounts for a small portion of fentanyl found in the US, which comes primarily from Mexico.
