Venezuela Denies 11 Killed in US Boat Strike Were Gang Members

None of the 11 people killed in a US military strike on a boat in the Caribbean last week were members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, Venezuela's interior minister has said, while US media reported the attack came after the vessel had turned around and was heading back to shore.

- Guardian staff

The Donald Trump administration has said the boat was transporting illegal narcotics but has provided little further information about the incident, even after demands from members of the US Congress for a justification for the action.

"They openly confessed to killing 11 people," Venezuela's interior minister and ruling party head, Diosdado Cabello, said on state television. "We have done our investigations here in our country and there are the families of the disappeared people who want their relatives, and when we asked in the towns, none were from Tren de Aragua, none were drug traffickers.

"A murder has been committed against a group of citizens using lethal force," added Cabello, questioning how the US could determine whether drugs were on the boat and why the people were not instead arrested.

"How did they identify them as members of the Tren de Aragua? Did they have, I don't know, a chip? Did they have a QR code and [the US military] read it from above in the dark?" Cabello said.