US President Donald Trump said Friday the US military has carried out its third fatal strike against an alleged drug smuggling vessel this month. Trump in a social media posting said the strike killed three and was carried out against a vessel `affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narco-trafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility.`

He did not provide more precise details about the location of the strike. The Pentagon deferred questions about the strike to the White House, which did not respond to a request for clarity about the origins of the vessel. `Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans,` Trump said in the post.