Friday’s attack brings the total known death toll to 43 since the bombing campaign began.It also marks an escalating pace to the air strikes: The US government has announced three strikes this week in as many days.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth broke the news of the latest bombing on his social media, identifying the victims as members of the Venezuela-based gang Tren de Aragua.
He also indicated that President Donald Trump himself had once again given authorisation for the strike, which allegedly took place in international waters in the Caribbean Sea.
“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” Hegseth wrote, though he provided no evidence to justify his allegations.
Hegseth added that this was the military’s first strike on a boat at night.
He then repeated what has been an emerging argument in the Trump administration: that drug traffickers should be treated no differently than armed groups like al-Qaeda.
“If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat al-Qaeda,” Hegseth said. “Day or NIGHT, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you.”
While this year the Trump administration has started designating Latin American cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations”, the label has traditionally been used to describe armed groups that seek to use violence for political or ideological aims.
Legal experts also maintain that a terrorism label alone does not justify the use of military force.
Already, leaders in Colombia and Venezuela have denounced the bombing campaign as “murder”, and human rights experts at the United Nations have condemned the killings as a potential violation of international law.