The attack came amid renewed attention to the Trump administration’s campaign against suspected drug traffickers.
The US military has again bombed a suspected drug smuggling ship in the Caribbean, killing four people, the Pentagon said.
Thursday’s attack comes as US President Donald Trump’s administration faces fresh scrutiny over the attack, after it emerged that the target vessel was hit twice during the September 2 attack.
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Experts say such attacks could amount to war crimes.
U.S. Southern Command said in a post on X that the attack was directed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
The military announced that it had carried out a deadly kinetic attack on a vessel operated by a designated terrorist organization in international waters.
“Intelligence agencies have confirmed that the vessel was transporting illegal narcotics and was traveling along known drug trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Four male narco-terrorists on board were killed.”
The Trump administration has killed more than 80 suspected drug smugglers in a months-long campaign.
However, revelations about the September 2 strike prompted new scrutiny and investigation by a bipartisan committee in Congress.
The White House denied that Hegseth ordered a second attack on the ship after the first. Instead, they said the second attack, which apparently killed two survivors of the first attack, was ordered by Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley.
The White House said the second attack still complied with the laws of armed conflict. Legal experts say targeting unarmed combatants is a war crime. The military’s own manual states that firing at shipwrecks is illegal.
Mr. Bradley appeared at the Capitol on Thursday for a series of closed-door conferences. He denied being ordered to kill everyone on board.
Lawmakers gave conflicting accounts of the meeting.
“Mr. Bradley has made it very clear that he was not given orders to kill everyone without giving him any leeway,” said Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to the Associated Press.
“The order was basically to destroy the drugs and kill the 11 people on the boat,” said Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
Smith said video of the attack showed the survivors “basically two shirtless men floating in the water clinging to the bow of a capsized, out-of-control boat until a missile came and killed them.”
Even before the Sept. 2 double attacks were revealed, rights groups had argued that the attacks amounted to extrajudicial killings.
Earlier this week, the family of Alejandro Carranza filed a complaint with local rights groups, alleging that the Colombian fisherman’s right to life was violated when he was unjustly killed in a US military attack in September.
The Trump administration has characterized the attack as part of a broader “war” against so-called “narco-terrorists,” but no law has been approved by Congress to declare war or use force.
The attack comes as the United States continues to increase military assets near Venezuela’s coast, and President Trump has repeatedly threatened a ground attack “soon.”
Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro has said the US pressure campaign is aimed at overthrowing his government.
