Colombian rebels respond to US ‘drug boat’ claim

The National Liberation Army (ELN) has said its rules forbid trafficking narcotics

Colombia’s largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), has said that it has nothing to do with the alleged drug boat destroyed by the US Navy in the Caribbean.

The vessel was struck on Friday, with US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth later posting footage of the attack on X and saying that, according to American intelligence, it had been “affiliated” with the ELN and “involved in illicit narcotics smuggling.”

The National Liberation Army issued a statement on social media on Tuesday, insisting that it “does not and will not have any boat connected with drug trafficking activities, neither in the Caribbean nor any other ocean.” Narcotics smuggling is “simply… prohibited” by the group’s rules, it said as cited by Reuters.

The ELN is the oldest rebel group in Colombia, which has been fighting the government since the mid-1960s. Washington claims that it also maintains a presence in Venezuela. The group, which pursues Communist ideology, is designated a terrorist organization by the US, EU, and some other countries.

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On Monday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the strike on the boat, in which three people were killed. The vessel belonged to a “humble family” and was not involved in drug trafficking, he insisted.

Earlier this month, Petro claimed that the American attacks on boats off Venezuela’s coast, which began in September, were “an aggression against all of Latin America and the Caribbean.” He asserted the US was trying to gain control of the region’s oil reserves – not curb the flow of narcotics. Venezuelan authorities say the strikes were in fact part of Washington’s campaign to depose Nicolas Maduro. Caracas denies ties to cartels and has vowed to repel any invasion.

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump called his Colombian counterpart an “illegal drug dealer,” saying that he would raise tariffs on the South American nation and stop all payments to it. Drug trafficking “has become the biggest business” in Colombia and “Petro does nothing to stop it,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

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Bogota responded by recalling its ambassador from Washington on Monday, with Petro accusing Trump of being “rude and ignorant to Colombia.”