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WASHINGTON: US forces carried out a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat off the coast of Venezuela on Friday, killing four people, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said.
The latest strike, which Hegseth announced in a post on X, brings the number of such US attacks to at least four, leaving at least 21 people dead.
An accompanying video shared by Hegseth showed a boat speeding across the waves before being engulfed in smoke and flames.
“Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,” the Pentagon chief wrote.
He said the strike “was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics — headed to America to poison our people.”
“These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!” he added.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and some of his allies in the region condemned the attack.
The latest military action comes after President Donald Trump’s administration said in a notice to Congress that he has determined the United States is engaged in “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
Washington has not released evidence to support its assertion that the targets of its strikes are drug smugglers, and experts say the summary killings are illegal even if they target confirmed narcotics traffickers.
The administration’s letter, a copy of which was obtained by AFP on Thursday, was designed as a legal justification for at least three previous strikes.
“The president determined these cartels are non-state armed groups, designated them as terrorist organizations, and determined that their actions constitute an armed attack against the United States,” said the notice from the Pentagon, which also described suspected smugglers as “unlawful combatants.”
Armed aggression
Trump posted the same video as Hegseth on his Truth Social platform, saying that “a boat loaded with enough drugs to kill 25 TO 50 THOUSAND PEOPLE was stopped... from entering American Territory.”
Maduro called US actions in the region “an armed aggression to impose regime change, to impose puppet governments, and to steal Venezuela’s oil, gas, gold and all natural resources.”
Speaking at an event in Caracas, Maduro ordered the mobilization of reservists and militias “if it is necessary to move from unarmed combat to armed combat.”
The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), a leftist Latin American bloc co-founded by Maduro’s late mentor, Hugo Chavez, condemned in a statement the “illegal incursion” by US fighter jets, deeming the raid a violation of international law.
ALBA argued that the repeated US strikes aim to “destabilize the region” and instill fear in its people.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro — a fierce critic of Trump’s policy of striking alleged traffickers — wrote on X that “the narco-terrorists don’t go in the boats — the narcos live in the US, Europe and Dubai.”
“There were poor Caribbean youths on that boat,” Petro wrote, adding that striking vessels that could instead be intercepted at sea “violates the universal judicial principal of proportionality.”
Tensions between the United States and Venezuela have been high over the deployment of multiple American warships in the region.
Venezuela said Thursday it had detected “an illegal incursion” by five US fighter jets flying off its shores, with Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino denouncing the alleged flights as a “provocation.”
Trump last month dispatched 10 F-35 aircraft to Puerto Rico, a US territory in the Caribbean, as part of the biggest military deployment in the area in over three decades.

ISLAMABAD: The government in Azad Kashmir has reached an agreement with a civil rights alliance to end days of unrest in the northern Pakistani region, a Pakistani federal minister announced on Saturday, following the killing of at least nine people in deadly clashes.

The clashes erupted after calls for an indefinite ‘lockdown’ by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JKJAAC) from Sept. 29, seeking removal of perks for government officials, ending 12 seats in the regional assembly reserved for Kashmiri migrants who came from the Indian-side of the territory, and royalty for hydel power projects.

The protests have turned violent as protesters and police came face to face and clashed at various locations, with authorities confirming killing of six civilians and three policemen this week. The crisis prompted Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to send a negotiations team to the territory to join the regional government in talks with the protesters.

“It was the wisdom of local and national leadership and the spirit of dialogue that enabled us to resolve this stand-off peacefully, without violence, without division, and with mutual respect,” Pakistani Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, who was part of the negotiations, said on X.

Pakistani Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr. Tariq Fazal Chaudhry shared a copy of the agreement on X, which included the formation of a judicial commission to probe violent incidents, reduction in the number of regional government ministers and secretaries, and setting up a committee on reserved seats for migrants.

“Persons killed in the incidents of 1st and 2nd October 2025 shall be compensated with monetary benefits equivalent to LEAs (law enforcement agencies),” it read. “Gunshot injuries will be compensated at the rate of Rs10 lac ($3,554) per injured person. A government job shall be granted to one of the family members of each dead person within 20 days.”

The picture shared on Oct. 4, 2025, shows government officials and representative o Joint Action Committee in Islamabad, Pakistan. (Ahsan Iqbal/X)

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both claim the territory in its entirety, but rule in part.

Azad Kashmir is the part administered by Pakistan. The negotiations between the government and AKJAAC followed shutter-down and wheel-jam strikes that disrupted public life in the territory.

In May 2024, a similar wave of protests paralyzed the region. After six days of strikes and violent clashes that left at least four dead, PM Sharif approved a grant of Rs 23 billion ($86 million) for subsidies on flour and electricity, and a judicial commission to review elite privileges.

Protest leaders suspended their campaign at that time but warned that failure to implement the package would fuel fresh unrest.