Trump orders 'Venezuelan drug vessel' strike, Rubio calls it start of crackdown on cartels

Mexico City, Sep 4 US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that American forces could have intercepted a Venezuelan vessel suspected of carrying illegal drugs, but President Donald Trump instead ordered it destroyed, resulting in the deaths of 11 people.

"Instead of interdicting it, on the President's orders, we blew it up -- and it'll happen again," Rubio told reporters in Mexico City on Wednesday (local time), defending what he called an unprecedented escalation.

The strike, described by the US as a "precision operation," occurred Tuesday in the Caribbean Sea.

Rubio said traffickers were given no warning because "a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl" posed "an immediate threat to the United States."

"This President is not a talker; he's a doer; he's going to do it," Rubio added.

Trump claimed the vessel's crew were members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang Washington has designated as a terrorist organisation, and said "massive amounts of drugs" were found on board.

"We have tapes of them speaking, you see the bags of drugs all over the boat," the US President told reporters in the Oval Office.

The Pentagon has so far not released evidence or details of the strike, nor an explanation of why lethal force was chosen over interdiction.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said only that US operations against cartels would continue.

"Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco terrorist will face the same fate," he stated.

However, the move sparked sharp criticism from legal experts who questioned its legitimacy under international law. Mary Ellen O'Connell, an international law professor at Notre Dame, said the attack "violated fundamental principles of international law," adding that the US had "no right to intentionally kill these suspects."

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