President Donald Trump says the United States (US) has carried out a military strike against a vessel transporting drugs in the southern Caribbean international waters.

The Pentagon says a narcotics trafficking gang was operating the vessel.

Trump later posted a video of the strike of what appeared to be a speedboat with occupants and some cargo.

Eleven people are reported to have been killed.

Trump posted that US military forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua narco-terrorists, a designated foreign terrorist organisation by the US.

Trump says the organisation was operating under the control of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and accused the group of being responsible for mass murder, drug and sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across America and the Western Hemisphere.

The move comes after Washington, in recent weeks, boosted its maritime forces in the waters off Venezuela in an effort to combat Latin American drug cartels that operate in that region.

Maduro argues the US is building a false drug-trafficking narrative in an effort to force him from office.

VIDEO | Three missile destroyers deployed to Venezuela: