Sept. 2 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he ordered a "kinetic strike" on a boat carrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States that he said killed nearly a dozen members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Trump made the announcement in a social media post referring to members of the infamous Venezuelan gang as "narcoterrorists." The strike marks the Trump administration's embrace of military force against drug trafficking, which was previously left to law enforcement. It is also the latest ratcheting up of hostility with Venezuela after Trump said the gang is controlled by the country's leader Nicolas Maduro.
The early morning strike killed 11 members of the gang while they were transporting illegal narcotics in international waters, according to Trump. U.S. military personnel were not harmed, he wrote.
"Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America," Trump wrote in his post.
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