US military carries out 30th strike on alleged drug boat

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Monday that it had conducted another strike against a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people.

The strike, which was announced by U.S. Southern Command on social media, has brought the total number of known boat strikes to 30 and the number of people killed at least 107 since early September, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.

The military said the vessel “was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” though it did not provide evidence to back up the claim.

In a video of the strike posted to social media, a boat is seen moving through water before being struck by two explosions.

President Donald Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

Along with the strikes, the Trump administration has built up military forces in the region as part of an escalating pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the United States.

Trump, when asked by reporters Monday about “an explosion in Venezuela,” said the U.S. had “hit” a dock facility along a shore where boats accused of carrying drugs “load up."

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida. Trump, the White House and the Pentagon have provided no other details.

In December, the Trump administration also launched a new tactic by seizing two sanctioned oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela and pursuing a third. As a result, some sanctioned tankers began to divert away from the South American country.

Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. operations is to force him from power. Trump for months has suggested that he may conduct land strikes in Venezuela or possibly another country.

The Trump administration has been faced scrutiny from lawmakers over the boat strike campaign. It grew amid revelations that the first attack in early September involved a follow-up strike that killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of a boat after the first hit.