US has seized survivors after strike on suspected drug-carrying vessel in Caribbean

Washington: The United States took survivors into custody after its military struck a suspected drug-carrying vessel in the Caribbean — the first attack that anyone escaped alive since President Donald Trump began launching deadly attacks in the region last month, a defence official and another person familiar with the matter said Friday.

Trump later confirmed the attack. “We attacked a submarine, and that was a drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs” Trump said while hosting the Ukrainian president at the White House.

Secretary of State Rubio did not dispute that there were survivors, but he repeatedly said details would be forthcoming. The strike Thursday brought the death toll from the Trump administration’s military action against vessels in the region to at least 28.

It is believed to be at least the sixth strike in the waters off Venezuela since early September, and the first to result in survivors who were picked up by the US military. It was not immediately clear what would be done with the survivors, who the people said were being held on a US Navy vessel. They confirmed the strike and the seizing of survivors on the condition of anonymity because the attack had not yet been publicly acknowledged by Trump’s administration.

Trump has justified the strikes by asserting that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration when it declared a war on terror after the September 11 attacks.