ISTANBUL

The US has for the first time confirmed that some individuals survived a recent airstrike on Thursday targeting an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean, ABC News reported, citing US officials.

The US military said it carried out the strike against what it described as a narcotics trafficking boat operating in Caribbean waters. A US official said some people survived the attack, marking the first known instance of survivors in a series of similar US operations in the region.

Reuters earlier reported details of the strike and confirmed the presence of survivors. Thursday’s operation was at least the sixth such attack under the Trump administration, which has labeled the targeted boats as “narcoterrorist-operated” vessels.

Washington has not released evidence to substantiate its claims that the targeted crafts were involved in drug trafficking.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the legality of the operations, saying they fall within the government’s authority to combat narcotics smuggling from Venezuela. She said President Donald Trump has been “very transparent” about the strikes, pointing to the release of declassified footage.

“There should be no surprise for this. The president campaigned on using every lever of power to go after the drug cartels who have been trafficking illicit poison into our country for far too long,” Leavitt told reporters, adding that fewer drug boats have reached US shores as a result of the operations.

Venezuela’s Ambassador to the UN Samuel Moncada condemned the airstrikes, urging Washington to “stop this madness” and accusing it of extrajudicial executions of civilians in the Caribbean Sea.

Moncada said relatives of two of the six people killed in a previous strike identified them as fishermen from Trinidad and Tobago, not narcotraffickers. He called on the UN Security Council to investigate the operations and reaffirm “unrestricted respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, including Venezuela.”

A decree signed earlier by Trump authorized broader deployment of US forces to counter Latin American drug cartels. Following that order, the US positioned warships and submarines off Venezuela’s coast in late August.

International observers have criticized Washington’s continued targeting of vessels off the Venezuelan coast under the pretext of anti-drug operations, describing the strikes as violations of international law.