The US Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, recently declared reports that he may have illegally ordered the killing of all people in a military strike in the Caribbean as “fake news” on Friday evening, saying that the series of attacks on people on boats was “lawful under both US and international law”.
Hegseth described the reports about his role in the strike as “fabricated, inflammatory and defamatory reporting designed to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to defend the homeland.”
The comments follow a Washington Post report this week alleging that Hegseth ordered defense officials to “kill everybody” traveling on the boat that was being monitored by analysts on Sept. 2, the first strike by the Trump administration in recent months. The White House said – without any evidence – that people on boats in the Caribbean who died in the Pentagon operation were drug smugglers.
Following the Washington Post’s reporting, two senators – Republican Roger Wicker and Democrat Jack Reed – issued a statement saying that the Senate Armed Services Committee would investigate the boat attacks.
“The Committee is aware of recent news reports and the Department of Defense’s initial response regarding alleged follow-on attacks on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” the senators wrote in a joint statement.
“The committee has directed the department to investigate, and we will conduct a vigorous investigation to determine the facts surrounding the circumstances.”
During the September 2 operation, led by elite counterterrorism group SEAL Team 6, two survivors of the first missile strike were left trapped in the debris, the Post reported. The head of Special Operations Command, Admiral Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, reportedly ordered a second attack to kill the two survivors, following Hegseth’s orders.
According to the Post, some current and former US officials and experts have said that the Trump administration’s missile strikes in the Caribbean may be unlawful. To date, more than 80 people have been killed in a series of military attacks targeting at least 22 more boats.
Historically, the US government has banned drug smuggling boats in the waters and prosecuted alleged traffickers.
The Trump administration has accused all of the people aboard the boats in the Caribbean of being drug smugglers, and has said they were primarily members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which has been a major focus of the administration. Most of the boats have left from Venezuela, where political pressure from the US government is increasing.
“The stated intent is to interdict lethal drugs, destroy narco-bots, and kill narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people,” Hegseth said in a social media post Friday evening. “Each smuggler we killed is affiliated with a designated terrorist organization.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization. The administration has also accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of being the head of the Cartel de los Souls, an alleged drug-trafficking organization composed of top Venezuelan government and military officials. Although authorities have also declared the Cartel de los Soles a terrorist organization, organized crime experts say the group is a loose network of low-level military officers without a strict hierarchical structure.
Trump has said the US is attacking the boats because of the high rate of fentanyl overdose deaths. But lawmakers, narcotics experts and former law enforcement officials have rejected that claim, because fentanyl does not come from Venezuela.
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An Associated Press report this month cast doubt on the Trump administration’s claims about the boat attacks. It details the lives of many of those killed, revealing that although some were indeed dealing drugs, they were “not narco-terrorists or cartel or gang leaders”.
Venezuelan officials and some other countries have condemned the administration’s attacks in the Caribbean region, saying they are a violation of due process. Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations called the attacks “extrajudicial executions”.
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that alleged traffickers pose a direct threat to the US, leading them to say they are in “armed conflict” with the groups. The Guardian reported this week that the Trump administration is carrying out the strikes as a self-defense effort on behalf of U.S. allies in the region. During the attacks, only a few survived, including an Ecuadorian man and a Colombian man, who were captured by the US and then returned to their home countries.
A boat attack off Mexico’s Pacific coast in October led the Mexican Navy to launch a search and rescue operation for survivors.
Internally, Defense Department officials have been quietly raising concerns about boat attacks. A senior military lawyer disagreed with the Trump administration that the strikes were lawful and was later sidelined by other officials, NBC reported. And Admiral Alvin Holsey, the commander overseeing strikes against boat attacks, stepped down in October. Although the reason behind Holsey’s departure is unknown, The New York Times reported that he had raised internal concerns about attacks on boats.
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