Trump posts explosive video of six

President Donald Trump posted a 33-second-long video of a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel,” he said was affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO), conducting narcotrafficking off the coast of Venezuela.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route. The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike. No U.S. Forces were harmed. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!!!!”, the president wrote on his TruthSocial account.

The United Nations has beforehand condemned the US strikes on small boats it believes to be trafficking medication as extrajudicial executions. The US defends the assaults as countering “narco-terrorist” members of Tren de Aragua, which has been designated a overseas terrorist group.

This marks the fifth strike the U.S. army has performed against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea in current months. The earlier 4 strikes killed 21 people in complete, according to administration officers.

Trump has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of being a drug lord and called him an illegitimate later. The administration has called off diplomatic outreach with Venezuela in current weeks.

Earlier this month, the president informed Congress that the U.S. is in an armed battle with drug cartels characterised as terrorist teams by the administration.

Democrats have objected to the strikes, which first happened in early September. Last week, the Senate voted on a conflict powers decision that would have barred the administration from conducting the strikes unless Congress particularly licensed them, but the decision failed to go.

Dozens of people have been killed in the US strikes so far, according to US officers.

Earlier this month the Associated Press reported that the Trump adminstration has yet to present underlying evidence to lawmakers proving that alleged drug-smuggling boats focused by the U.S. army in a sequence of deadly strikes have been in fact carrying narcotics. Two U.S. officers acquainted with the matter told the AP, under the condition of anonymity.

The officers, who weren’t licensed to remark publicly about the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration has only pointed to unclassified video clips of the strikes posted on social media by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and has yet to produce “hard evidence” that the vessels have been carrying medication.

Lawmakers have expressed frustration that the administration is offering little element about how it got here to resolve the U.S. is in armed battle with cartels or even detailing which legal organizations it claims as “unlawful combatants.”

A small group of top administration officers — including Rubio, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Trump aide Stephen Miller — has pushed the push to perform the deadly strikes, officers said, the AP reported.

A White House official urged that lawmakers have been being disingenuous with their criticism and that the Trump administration has been “much more forthcoming” with the legal rationale than Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration was when it carried out strikes focusing on militants in the Middle East.

The official, who was not licensed to remark publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Pentagon officers have held six separate labeled briefings to Congress on the operations.