The two survivors of the U.S. military strike on a suspected drug-carrying vessel in the Caribbean this week will be sent back to Colombia and Ecuador, President Trump said Saturday.
“It was my great honor to destroy a very large drug-carrying submarine that was navigating toward the United States on a well-known narcotrafficking transit route,” Trump posted on his social media platform early Saturday afternoon.
The vessel was “loaded with mostly fentanyl and other illegal narcotics,” the president claimed, adding that the submarine was carrying four individuals he referred to as “narcoterrorists,” two of whom were killed in the attack.
“The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution,” Trump added.
Experts say the repatriation of both individuals spares the Trump administration from deciding their legal status in the U.S. justice system and helps avoid potential legal challenges tied to the operation.
The administration’s latest strike on suspected drug-carrying vessels in the waters off Venezuela — the sixth reported attack since Sept. 2 — brings the total death toll to at least 29.
Critics say such use of military force, which Trump has justified by saying the U.S. is engaging in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, appears to violate both international and domestic law.
“All available evidence suggests that President Trump’s lethal strikes in the Caribbean constitute murder, pure and simple,” Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, said in a statement this week.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Navy commander overseeing the strikes on the alleged drug-carrying vessels in the Caribbean would step down by the end of the year.
Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of the U.S. Southern Command, has only been in his post for roughly 11 months — a position that was expected to last three years.
With News Wire Services
