Dominican Republic reports US attack on drug boat near its coast
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AFP) — United States (US) warplanes attacked a drug-running boat off the coast of the Dominican Republic, its drug enforcement agency and a US official announced Sunday in an expansion of American military activity in the Caribbean.
The head of the DNCD anti-narcotics agency announced the strike at a joint press conference with a spokesperson for the US embassy.
The latter official said this attack is the one President Donald Trump first announced Friday, without saying where it had taken place, following several US attacks on alleged drug boats off Venezuela.
In this newly reported strike, American military jets attacked a speed boat carrying 1,000 kilos of cocaine 80 nautical miles from the Dominican island of Beata, DNCD spokesman Carlos Devers told the news conference.
A source close to the investigation of this case said the boat probably left originally from Venezuela.
The United States has now acknowledged three recent attacks in the Caribbean that have killed more than a dozen people.
It is attacking and destroying such vessels rather than seizing them and arresting their crew, which is the normal procedure in such anti-drug operations.
Trump said Friday the US military had struck a drug trafficking boat in international waters, killing three people.
Unlike after previous attacks, Trump made no mention of Venezuela, where the US Navy has deployed a small armada in a mission it says is designed to combat drug trafficking.
Trump’s announcement on his Truth Social platform included video of a speed boat in the cross hairs of some kind of weapon, then exploding in flames as it is hit by ordnance.
The US military deployment — eight warships and a nuclear-powered submarine to the southern Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela and 10 fighter jets sent to nearby Puerto Rico — has been widely denounced in Latin America, stoking fears that the United States is planning to attack Venezuela.
It has also prompted debate over the legality of the killings, with drug trafficking itself not a capital offence under US law.
Washington has also not provided details to back up its claims that the boats targeted have actually been trafficking drugs.
Leftist President Nicolas Maduro has accused the United States of pursuing regime change in his country under the guise of an operation to combat drug trafficking.
