The U.S. carried out a strike on Friday against a “narco-trafficking vessel” off the coast of Venezuela, killing four people aboard, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said.

Hegseth said the operation, ordered by President Donald Trump, targeted a ship linked to designated terrorist organisations in the U.S. Southern Command area. “Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike, and no U.S. forces were harmed,” he wrote on X.

The vessel was transporting “substantial amounts of narcotics—headed to America to poison our people,” Hegseth added. The strike, conducted in international waters, is the fourth such operation in recent weeks targeting drug-trafficking ships.

“These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over,” Hegseth warned.

Trump said the operation stopped a shipment capable of killing 25,000 to 50,000 people. “A boat loaded with enough drugs to kill 25 to 50 thousand people was stopped early this morning off the coast of Venezuela from entering American territory,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Tensions between the Trump administration and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro have risen recently after the U.S. deployed a naval group to the southern Caribbean, citing the need to combat criminal cartels and drug trafficking. The U.S. is also offering a $50 million reward for Maduro’s arrest.

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