Trump’s War on Drug Trafficking Moves Closer to American Mainland With Strike on Boat Near Dominican Republic

President Trump’s “kinetic war” on Latin American drug traffickers moved closer to the American mainland this week after Dominican and American agents seized 1,000 kilograms of drugs following an aerial strike on a speedboat transporting narcotics 80 miles south of the Dominican Republic. The boat contained 13 bales totaling 377 packages of what is presumed to be cocaine, the Dominican Republic’s national drug control agency announced on Sunday in a press conference where the recovered shipment was on display. “The Dominican Republic, through its National Directorate for Drug Control, confirms that a coordinated operation with international partners has resulted in the destruction of a maritime vessel engaged in narcotics trafficking in the Caribbean Sea,” said the directorate’s president, Vice Admiral José Manuel Cabrera Ulloa.The Dominicans did not participate in the aerial attack, but did provide intelligence that contributed to the identification of a go-fast boat originating from Venezuela and suspected of transporting large quantities of cocaine and fentanyl toward North American waters, said Admiral Cabrera Ulloa. President Trump alluded to the attack in a social media post last week but offered no details at the time.It was the second joint operation against narcoterrorism in the Caribbean Region carried out by American authorities with the assistance of Dominican officials since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s expanded war on drugs.On September 2, a Navy drone strike hit a suspected narco-boat 120 nautical miles off Venezuela and ostensibly heading toward Puerto Rico. Eleven individuals that American officials claimed were members of a Venezuelan cartel died in the incident, which was the first direct military action conducted under the Trump administration’s new rules of engagement. The operation was conducted by Southcom with the assistance of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and Dominican officials. “This action demonstrates our unwavering commitment to regional security and the fight against narcoterrorism. We reaffirm our dedication to international cooperation and to protecting our citizens from the scourge of illicit drugs,” the admiral said of Friday’s strike. On September 15, American forces interdicted another boat carrying three narco-traffickers. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called it a “surgical hit” by military forces. “We will stop at nothing to defend our homeland and our citizens. We will track them, kill them, and dismantle their networks throughout our hemisphere — at the times and places of our choosing,” Mr. Hegseth said.The confirmation of the most recent operation came two days after President Trump alluded to it in a TruthSocial post. “On my Orders, the Secretary of War ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans,” the president wrote in the post accompanied by a one-minute declassified video that showed the boat being blown up. Three men aboard the vessel hit Friday were killed. No American or Dominican agents were harmed, Mr. Trump said. With ongoing hits to Venezuelan narco-boats, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent and Venezuela country attaché, Wesley Tabor, tells the Sun that the president’s multi-point drug war is beginning to choke off fentanyl and cocaine traffickers at both the Southwest land border as well as the Caribbean maritime entry points. “We never established a strong enough presence in both east and west to stop it. But now we have barricaded both the east and the west,” Mr. Tabor said, adding, “This is not a law enforcement game. This is a DoD game with assistance from law enforcement.”

Trump’s War on Drug Trafficking Moves Closer to American Mainland With Strike on Boat Near Dominican Republic

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