The United States military has carried out yet another lethal strike on a suspected drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean, killing four people, the Pentagon announced, as the Trump administration faces growing criticism over the legality of its months-long campaign.
The latest attack, carried out on Thursday, comes amid heightened controversy after it emerged that a boat targeted in a September 2 operation had been hit twice, with experts warning that such an action could amount to a war crime. Investigations in the US Congress have intensified following the disclosure.
In a statement posted on X, the US Southern Command confirmed that the operation had been authorised by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. According to the statement, the military “conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization.”
Southern Command said intelligence assessments indicated the boat was transporting illegal narcotics along a well-known drug-trafficking corridor in the Eastern Pacific. “Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,” the statement added. The Trump administration has claimed responsibility for killing more than 80 alleged drug smugglers since the campaign began.
However, revelations about the September 2 strike have triggered bipartisan concern and prompted congressional committees to open fresh inquiries. The White House has rejected allegations that Hegseth directed a second strike on the same boat after the first attack. Instead, officials said Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley had ordered the follow-up strike, which appeared to kill two survivors of the initial blast.
The administration maintains that the second strike complied with the laws of armed conflict. But legal scholars have cautioned that targeting unarmed or incapacitated individuals constitutes a war crime. The US military’s own operational manual explicitly prohibits firing upon shipwrecked personnel. Bradley appeared before lawmakers on Thursday for closed-door briefings, where he denied receiving any order to eliminate all individuals on board.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters that Bradley had been “very clear” that no such directive had been issued. “Bradley was very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all,” Cotton said, according to the Associated Press. But Representative Adam Smith, the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, offered a different account.
Smith said he had viewed footage of the attack showing that the survivors were “basically two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat, drifting in the water – until the missiles come and kill them.” He added that the stated order had been: “Destroy the drugs, kill the 11 people on the boat.”
Long before the dual-strike revelations surfaced, human rights organisations had already described the US campaign as amounting to extrajudicial killings. Earlier this week, the family of Colombian fisherman Alejandro Carranza filed a complaint with a regional human rights body, asserting that his right to life had been violated after he was mistakenly killed in a US strike in September. The Trump administration has framed the operations as part of an expansive “war” against “narco-terrorists,” though no formal declaration of war or congressional authorisation for the use of military force has been issued.
The latest strike comes as the US continues to deploy additional military assets near Venezuela’s coastline, amid repeated warnings from Trump that land-based attacks against targets inside the country could occur “very soon.” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has accused Washington of using the pressure as part of a broader strategy to overthrow his government.
About the Author
