Overview
- U.S. Southern Command said intelligence linked the vessel to known drug routes and released video of the blast, while the Coast Guard searches for a missing survivor.
- The operation is the first publicly announced since late December and the first following the early January capture of Nicolás Maduro.
- The campaign, underway since September under President Donald Trump, targets what Washington calls “narcoterrorists” allegedly operating from or linked to Venezuela.
- International-law scholars and human-rights groups dispute the legality, warning the actions may constitute extrajudicial killings given the lack of publicly presented evidence.
- News outlets report more than 110 deaths from the strikes to date, with one report citing a U.S. tally of 117 across at least 35 attacks.