US military strikes 'drug vessel' from Venezuela

WASHINGTON

The US military carried out a strike on a "drug vessel" that allegedly departed from Venezuela, the Trump administration said Tuesday amid soaring tensions with Caracas.

"As @potus just announced moments ago, today the U.S. military conducted a lethal strike in the southern Carribean (sic) against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization," Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as President Donald Trump's National Security Advisor, wrote on American social media platform X.

Trump mentioned the strike earlier, but provided minimal details.

"We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country, coming in for a long time, and these came out of Venezuela. And coming out very heavily from Venezuela. A lot of things are coming out of Venezuela. So we took it out," the president said in the Oval Office.

Additional details on the incident were not immediately available.

Tensions between the Trump administration and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro have recently escalated after the US deployed a naval group to the southern Caribbean. The US claims the force is there to combat criminal cartels and drug trafficking.

The troop movement followed an increased reward of $50 million for information leading to Maduro's arrest.

"They're trying to demonize me," Maduro said at a news conference Monday. "We're not going to accept anyone applying their model to us."

"We have declared Venezuela's maximum preparedness: in response to maximum pressure, maximum preparedness," he added.

Addressing Trump directly, Maduro warned that Rubio "wants to fill his hands with blood -- Caribbean and Latin blood."