US military flew supersonic B-1 bombers up to the coast of Venezuela
The U.S. force in the Caribbean includes eight warships, P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, MQ-9 Reaper drones and an F-35 fighter squadron. A submarine has also been confirmed to be operating in the waters off South America.
Trump on Wednesday said he has the “legal authority” to carry out the strikes on the alleged drug-carrying boats and suggested similar strikes could be done on land.
“We will hit them very hard when they come in by land,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’re totally prepared to do that. And we’ll probably go back to Congress and explain exactly what we’re doing when we come to the land.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the military had conducted its ninth strike, killing three people in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It followed a strike Tuesday night, also in the eastern Pacific, that killed two people and brought the overall death toll from the strikes to at least 37.
The latest pair of strikes expanded the Trump administration’s campaign against drug trafficking in South America from the waters of the Caribbean to the eastern Pacific.
Hegseth has drawn a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown.
“Our message to these foreign terrorist organizations is we will treat you like we have treated al-Qaeda,” Hegseth told reporters on Thursday at the White House.
“We will find you, we will map your networks, we will hunt you down, and we will kill you,” he added.
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