President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States had attacked a vessel carrying drugs in the US Southern Command's area of responsibility, the latest US strike in the region.
The latest strike - at least the third against drug vessels - comes amid a large US military buildup in the southern Caribbean. Five F-35 aircraft were seen landing in Puerto Rico on Saturday after the Trump administration ordered 10 of the stealth fighters to join the buildup.
In a post on social media on Friday, Trump said the Pentagon carried out the strike on his orders, killing "three male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel".
"Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans."
US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) is the US military's combatant command that encompasses 31 countries through South and Central America and the Caribbean.
Trump posted a minute-long aerial video that showed two side-by-side videos of a vessel, one in color and one in black and white, as it moved through the water. About halfway through, the vessel appears to be struck by at least one projectile and then explodes. The video ends with a single aerial angle of the vessel on fire in the water.
Trump did not say where the vessel departed from or where specifically the strike took place.
In addition to the F-35s, there are at least seven US warships in the region, as well as one nuclear-powered submarine.
The US military carried out a strike earlier this week in the Southern Caribbean that targeted an alleged Venezuelan drug cartel vessel heading to the United States.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali, Kanishka Singh in Washington and Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Editing by Leslie Adler and William Mallard)
