President Donald Trump on Friday said that a US strike killed the leader of the transnational criminal group Tren de Aragua.
"At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform also carrying a video appearing to show the strike.
Trump said that "this action was coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well."
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the strike was carried out on "a Tren de Aragua (TdA) compound in Venezuela" earlier in the week.
"The operation underscores the shared U.S. and Venezuelan commitment to take the fight to narco-terrorists and deny them any safe haven in our hemisphere," Hegseth added in a post on X.
Considered Venezuela's most powerful gang, Tren de Aragua is linked to drug trafficking, extortion, illegal mining and people smuggling, and has expanded its operations into other Latin American countries and the US. The Trump administration designated the group as a terrorist organization earlier this year.
Trump said that "Tren de Aragua terrorists no longer have safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else and, under my leadership, we will find these vicious murderers and drugs lords anytime, anyplace, and send them to the depths of hell where they belong."
The Trump administration has taken extraordinary measures against what they have labelled "narco-terrorism," including by carrying strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific.
According to the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), more than 200 suspected drug traffickers have been killed in such strikes since they started in September.
Oil-rich Venezuela has been in a phase of political upheaval since the US overthrew authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro at the beginning of the year.
