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Stand­ing un­der the warm weath­er yes­ter­day, the Venezue­lan shore­line could be seen clear­ly with the naked eye from Ica­cos Bay. Even as the waves crashed rhyth­mi­cal­ly as fish­er­men re­turned with their catch, be­neath the calm was a grow­ing un­ease.

It came af­ter the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary killed 11 al­leged drug traf­fick­ers in a pre­ci­sion airstrike off the Venezuela coast on Tues­day. The US mil­i­tary launched a strike in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters, de­stroy­ing a pirogue al­leged­ly op­er­at­ed by mem­bers of the Tren de Aragua car­tel and killing the sus­pect­ed traf­fick­ers.

Wash­ing­ton framed the ac­tion as a counter-nar­cotics mis­sion against transna­tion­al threats. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar quick­ly voiced sup­port, call­ing for vi­o­lent ac­tion against traf­fick­ers.