United States President Donald Trump says American forces have carried out a third strike targeting a ship that he claimed was “trafficking illicit narcotics”, killing at least three men on board.

The announcement, late on Friday, came as Venezuela accused the US of waging an “undeclared war” in the Caribbean and called for a United Nations probe into the strikes.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the latest “lethal kinetic strike” took place on his orders in the US Southern Command’s “area of responsibility”, a region that encompasses 31 countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage en route to poison Americans,” Trump said.

“The strike killed 3 male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel, which was in international waters. No US Forces were harmed in this strike.”

Trump posted minute-long aerial footage showing side-by-side videos of a vessel – one in colour and one in black and white – that is struck by a projectile as it moves through the water.

The video ends with the vessel seen ablaze in the water.

Trump did not offer evidence to back his claim nor say where the vessel departed from and where specifically the strike took place.

‘Undeclared war’

The attack came as the US deployed warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 fighters sent to Puerto Rico, in what it calls an anti-drug operation.

It has previously carried out two strikes against alleged drug-smuggling vessels that it claims originated in Venezuela.

On September 2, Trump announced that the US military conducted a strike on a small boat he accused of trafficking drugs for Tren de Aragua, a gang originating from the South American country, killing 11 people.

Trump described the deceased as “narcoterrorists” who were “transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States”.

On Monday, Trump announced a strike on a second alleged Venezuelan drug cartel vessel in international waters.

He said three men were killed in the attack, and they had been “positively identified” as working for “extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists”.

In a separate incident this month, the Venezuelan government also accused the US military of “direct provocation” after it intercepted a “harmless” Venezuelan fishing boat in its exclusive economic zone.

The attacks have pushed already strained relations between the US and Venezuela to breaking point, as the Trump administration enacts a sustained pressure campaign on President Nicolas Maduro, whom it has described as a “direct threat” to Washington’s national security.

The Trump administration has also issued a $50m reward on Maduro on drug trafficking charges.

On Wednesday, Venezuela launched three days of military exercises on its Caribbean island of La Orchila in response to the perceived threat from the US flotilla.

“It is an undeclared war, and you can already see how people, whether or not they are drug traffickers, have been executed in the Caribbean Sea,” Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said on Friday as he attended a military exercise.

The victims have been “executed without the right to a defence”, he added.

For his part, Maduro has accused the Trump administration of trying to enact “violent regime change in Venezuela and in all of Latin America” and called on Washington to “respect sovereignty, the right to peace, [and] independence”.

He has also urged Venezuelan citizens to join militia training to “defend the homeland” and announced that troops would provide residents of low-income neighbourhoods with weapons training.

Venezuelan opposition figure Henrique Capriles, a two-time presidential candidate and staunch Maduro critic, said on Friday that he would not support any US invasion.

“I continue to believe that the solution is not military, but political,” he said, adding that Trump’s actions were counterproductive and “entrenching those in power”.

US lawmakers and rights groups have meanwhile raised concerns over whether the strikes violate international law and the rights of the targeted individuals, who have been extrajudicially executed without due process.

Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said “US officials cannot summarily kill people they accuse of smuggling drugs.

“The problem of narcotics entering the United States is not an armed conflict, and US officials cannot circumvent their human rights obligations by pretending otherwise,” Yager said.

Source: Al Jazeera