Las fuerzas armadas de Estados Unidos informaron el viernes por la noche que realizaron un ataque a una embarcación vinculada al narcotráfico en aguas internacionales del Caribe, cerca de Venezuela, en un operativo que dejó tres presuntos narcotraficantes muertos.

Según informó el Comando Sur de Estados Unidos (SOUTHCOM) a través de su cuenta oficial de X, la acción se realizó en una ruta identificada como frecuentemente utilizada por el crimen organizado. Ningún miembro de las fuerzas militares estadounidenses resultó herido“, resaltó en el comunicado.

Esta semana, bajo el mando del nuevo comandante Francis Donovan, la Fuerza de Tarea “Laza del Sur” intensificó sus acciones, con tres ataques recientes en la zona.

Los operativos cerca de Venezuela continúan, mientras en paralelo Trump el analiza desde Washington al gobierno interino liderado por la presidenta encargada Delcy Rodríguez.

La reciente acción militar de Estados Unidos se enmarca en el plan Lanza del Sur, una estrategia implementada por la administración del presidente Donald Trump desde septiembre del año pasado para combatir el narcotráfico en el Caribe y el Pacífico. Desde el inicio de la campaña, Estados Unidos realizó más de 37 ataques contra embarcaciones sospechosas en aguas internacionales.

Según el Comando Sur, hasta finales de enero el número de muertos por los bombardeos a botes vinculados al tráfico de drogas ascendía a 128, incluyendo tanto víctimas directas como personas desaparecidas y presumiblemente fallecidas en el mar. El Pentágono detalló que 118 personas murieron de inmediato y otras diez no fueron localizadas tras saltar al agua o no ser rescatadas.

Este último ataque es el quinto que se realiza tras la captura del ex dictador venezolano Nicolás Maduro, quien fue detenido durante una operación estadounidense en Caracas el 3 de enero y posteriormente trasladado a Nueva York para enfrentar cargos por narcotráfico.

La campaña militar arrancó con el despliegue de buques y aeronaves en la región y forma parte de la presión de Washington sobre Venezuela y Colombia para combatir a los cárteles, calificados por la Casa Blanca como “narcoterroristas”.

El viernes, el mandatario estadounidense destacó que ante tropas en Carolina del Norte el éxito de la operación militar que culminó el 3 de enero con la captura del ex líder del régimen venezolano.

Durante su discurso en la base de Fort Bragg, Trump calificó la acción como una demostración del poderío y la precisión de las fuerzas especiales estadounidenses y mencionó que la maniobra en Fuerte Tiuna, Caracas, se ejecutó “literalmente, en un minuto” con el despliegue de varios helicópteros de ataque y transporte.

Trump relató que, tras la incursión, tanto Maduro como la ex primera dama Cilia Flores fueron trasladados de inmediato a una prisión federal en Nueva York, donde permanecen a la espera de juicio por cargos de narcoterrorismo y conspiración.

El inquilino de la Casa Blanca resaltó que los soldados debieron superar estrictas medidas de seguridad: “Tuvieron que atravesar puertas de acero. El acero era como papel maché”, afirmó, aludiendo a la facilidad con que los equipos estadounidenses superaron las defensas venezolanas.

En su intervención, Trump también mencionó el uso de un sistema armamentístico secreto denominado “descombobulador”, que, según explicó, fue crucial para inutilizar los sistemas de defensa rusos y chinos presentes en Venezuela. “El equipo ruso no funcionó. El equipo chino no funcionó. Todos intentan averiguar por qué no funcionó. Algún día lo descubrirán, pero no funcionó”, declaró, sugiriendo la efectividad de la tecnología militar estadounidense en el asalto. El presidente concluyó afirmando que “es agradable poder volar sin que te disparen”, en referencia a la superioridad tecnológica empleada durante la operación.

Anteriormente, el Foro Económico Mundial de Davos, Trump defendió la política de ataques en aguas internacionales del Caribe y afirmó que “se logró detener casi el 100% de las drogas que entran por vía marítima”, calificando la ofensiva como una “escalada necesaria” para frenar el tráfico y asegurando: “Estamos en conflicto armado con los cárteles”.

President Donald Trump has the constitutional authority to fire court-appointed U.S. attorneys, even if judges legally appointed them, according to former Justice Department official John Yoo, who said the Constitution gives the president broad removal power over executive branch officers.

«Otherwise, you could have U.S. attorneys who are enforcing federal law differently than the president would, and it’s the president who all of us in the country elect and to whom the president is accountable,» Yoo told Fox News Digital in an interview.

Trump exercised that power this week by terminating Donald Kinsella just hours after federal judges in the Northern District of New York voted to install him to fill the vacancy left by Trump appointee John Sarcone, whose temporary term had expired. 

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche revealed the move in a fiery social media post, declaring that judges «don’t pick» U.S. attorneys and thrusting the fight deeper into a constitutional dispute over who ultimately controls them.

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At the center of the most recent dispute is a law that allows federal courts to appoint temporary U.S. attorneys when a presidential nominee has not been confirmed by the Senate and an acting official’s term has expired. Blanche suggested the court’s move to fill a U.S. attorney vacancy was unconstitutional, a comment that comes as the DOJ appeals Judge Lorna Schofield’s decision last month to disqualify Sarcone over his expired tenure.

But Yoo, a law professor at University of California, Berkeley, said both that the judges’ actions were legal due to a «quirk» in the law and that the president still has authority to fire Kinsella.

«No matter how an executive officer is appointed … none of these positions under the Constitution have any specific way to remove the officers, and so the president can remove all officers in the executive branch, particularly all officers in the Justice Department,» Yoo said.

Yoo said the Constitution lays out detailed processes for appointing U.S. attorneys but is «silent» on how they are removed.

«It has elaborate procedures … about how you appoint them to office. It doesn’t actually discuss at all how you remove them from office,» Yoo said, referencing the complex federal vacancy laws that govern how interim and acting U.S. attorneys are appointed.

John A. Sarcone III April 28, 2025, in the U.S. Attorney’s Office at the James T. Foley Federal Courthouse in Albany, N.Y.  (Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)

He noted that existing law and Supreme Court precedent have long given the president the ultimate power to fire inferior officers in the executive branch, meaning an official like the attorney general cannot remove the appointees chosen by the courts, such as Kinsella, but Trump can.

Kinsella did not respond to a request for comment on his termination.

Under the law, U.S. attorneys are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. But if the Senate does not act, the president can install a temporary U.S. attorney for a limited period, typically 120 days. If that term expires without confirmation of a nominee, the law gives the district court’s judges the power to appoint a replacement to avoid a vacancy in the office.

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Trump, for his part, has struggled to secure Senate confirmations of his U.S. attorney nominees in blue states, where the upper chamber’s blue slip tradition has meant that home state senators must greenlight his nominees. 

His interim appointees in these states, including New York, California, Nevada, New Jersey and Virginia, have faced legal setbacks as federal judges have uniformly found that Trump cannot repeatedly reappoint the same person to consecutive temporary terms.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has ruled out approving any of Trump’s nominees in New York, for example. After Trump fired Kinsella, a veteran federal prosecutor, Schumer said in a statement the president wanted an unqualified «political loyalist» in office. 

Alina Habba speaks to members of the media outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, D.C., March 24, 2025. (Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

«Everyone knows Trump only cares about one quality in a U.S. Attorney — complete political subservience,» Schumer said.

In New Jersey, Trump quickly fired a court-appointed U.S. attorney after a lower court found Alina Habba’s temporary term had expired. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit upheld the lower court’s finding that Habba was unlawfully serving.

In the Eastern District of Virginia, the top prosecutor’s role also remains in limbo as the DOJ appeals a judge’s decision to disqualify Lindsey Halligan, who brought high-profile indictments against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. The judge tossed those cases, finding Halligan was improperly appointed.

The Trump DOJ used a variety of loopholes in the law to install Sarcone, Habba, Halligan and others, and has argued in appeals that the judges disqualifying them — and replacing them with U.S. attorneys of the court’s choosing — were misreading the law.

«It is important that a DOJ component is overseen by someone who has the support of the Executive Branch, and that a U.S. Attorney’s Office can continue to function even when there is no Senate-confirmed or interim U.S. Attorney,» DOJ attorneys wrote in court papers in Habba’s case.

Yoo signaled that the courts were right to honor the statutory time constraints on acting and interm tenures, but he reiterated that Trump had sole removal power.

From the founding, he said, officers who enforce federal law have been removable at will by the president under Article II of the Constitution and the take care clause, the duty to «take care that the laws be faithfully executed.»

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«Any subordinates who are carrying out federal law have to be accountable to him,» Yoo said.

The DOJ has not at this stage elevated any of the U.S. attorney cases to the Supreme Court. Habba’s case is the furthest along, and a spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on whether the DOJ would appeal that decision.

A man who had recently been released from prison on a terrorism charge was shot and killed by a police officer after he allegedly tried to attack another officer with a knife and scissors near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris Friday.

The incident happened near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the ceremony for relighting the eternal flame, which is carried out nightly.

The unidentified man, who is a French national born in 1978, allegedly tried to attack an officer guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and was shot by another officer.

He died of his wounds at a hospital, the French counterterrorism prosecutor’s office said.

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He was sentenced to 17 years in prison in Brussels in 2013 on a terrorist-related offense of attempted murder of three police officers in Belgium and had just been released in December.

The man served 12 years in prison and was placed under police supervision with routine checks, the French prosecution office said.

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The French counterterrorism prosecutor’s office said it had opened an investigation into the man related to his ties to a «terrorist enterprise» before his death.

French President Emmanuel Macron visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arc de Triomphe in 2021.  ( Ludovic Marin/Pool via Reuters)

The man was held in a Belgian prison until 2015, when he was transferred to France and released on Christmas Eve.

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The Arc de Triomphe was closed to guests after the incident, which had no other reported injuries.

The man was killed in the incident.  (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva, File)

The Arc de Triomphe, at the end of the Champs-Élysées, is one of Paris and Europe’s most popular sights, and millions of tourists visit the monument in the heart of the French capital each year.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.