At least three people were killed instantly, while others were left stranded in international waters<\/p>\n
The US has destroyed three alleged narco-trafficking boats travelling in a convoy in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing a number of people aboard, as part of Washington\u2019s growing pressure campaign against Venezuela.
\nThe latest lethal \u201ckinetic strike\u201d was conducted in international waters on December 30, the US Southern Command announced on Wednesday.
\nThe Pentagon claimed that prior to the strikes, US intelligence agencies had\u00a0\u201cconfirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and had transferred narcotics between the three vessels.\u201d
\n\u201cThree narco-terrorists aboard the first vessel were killed in the first engagement. The remaining narco-terrorists abandoned the other two vessels, jumping overboard and distancing themselves before follow-on engagements sank their respective vessels,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
On Dec. 30, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted kinetic strikes against three narco-trafficking vessels traveling as a convoy. These vessels were operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters. Intelligence\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/NHRNIzcrFS\u2014 U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) December 31, 2025 <\/p>\n
The Pentagon said it \u201cimmediately notified\u201d the US Coast Guard to launch a search and rescue operation, but the fate of those stranded remains unclear.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Trump says US destroyed \u2018big facility\u2019 in Venezuela<\/p>\n
The latest strikes bring the total number of known boats destroyed to 33 and the number of people killed to at least 110 since early September, when the US launched Operation Southern Spear.
\nThe \u201canti-drug\u201d campaign launched by US President Donald Trump has drawn criticism internationally over the use of lethal force in international waters without a proper legal basis, which UN experts said could constitute \u201cextrajudicial executions.\u201d
\nIn November, the US designated the Venezuelan Cartel de los Soles as a terrorist organization, alleging links to Venezuelan\u00a0President Nicolas Maduro, an accusation\u00a0which Caracas has rejected.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Venezuela accuses US of \u2018greatest extortion\u2019 in history<\/p>\n
In December, Trump went further by declaring the Venezuelan government itself a foreign terrorist organization and ordering a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving the country.
\nMaduro has condemned the blockade as illegal under international law and has accused Washington of using the \u201cwar on drugs\u201d as a pretext for a regime change operation to seize Venezuela\u2019s natural resources.
\nTrump had also authorized the CIA to carry out covert actions inside Venezuela; the agency has reportedly carried out a secret drone strike against what the US president described as a \u201cbig facility\u201d\u00a0last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least three people were killed instantly, while others were left stranded in international waters The US has destroyed three alleged narco-trafficking boats travelling in a convoy in the eastern…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}