WASHINGTON (TNND) — President Donald Trump said two “narcoterrorists” who survived an attack on a “drug-carrying submarine” will be sent back to their home countries.
Trump confirmed the news on Saturday.
It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “U.S. Intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics.”
Trump said there were four “terrorists” aboard the vessel. He added that while two where killed, two others lived.
The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution,” he said. “No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Under my watch, the United States of America will not tolerate narcoterrorists trafficking illegal drugs, by land or by sea.”
Trump added that “at least 25,000 Americans would die if I allowed this submarine to come ashore.”
So far, nearly 30 “narcoterrorists” have been killed in what Trump has described as “kinetics strikes.”
The president has justified the strikes by asserting that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. He is relying on the same legal authority used by the George W. Bush administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks and is treating the suspected traffickers as if they were enemy soldiers in a traditional war.
At the President’s direction, the Department of War is establishing a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force in the @SOUTHCOM area of responsibility to crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe. The message is clear: if you traffic drugs toward our shores, we will stop you cold,” Hegseth previously wrote on X.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Associated Press contributed to this report.
