US FBI chief calls for 'al Qaeda' treatment for traffickers, after second strike

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Drug trafficking organizations must be treated the way foreign terrorist organizations were treated after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI Director Kash Patel said on Tuesday, pledging that the campaign against them will be a years-long mission. "We must treat them like the al Qaedas of the world," Patel said at a Senate hearing, a day after President Donald Trump said the U.S. military carried out a strike on a second Venezuelan boat in international waters. Trump said three men were killed in the strike and that the boat was carrying drugs, although he provided no evidence for that assertion.