After a gap of only three weeks, and the start of probe into the first US attack on an alleged drug-ferrying boat in the Caribbean Sea, the US Southern Command announced that it conducted another strike against a small boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
There were four casualties in Thursday’s strike, according to the social media post. It was the 22nd strike that the US military has carried out against boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, bringing the death toll of the strikes against alleged drug traffickers to at least 87 people.
In a video that accompanied the announcement, a small boat can be seen moving across the water before it is suddenly consumed by a large explosion. The video then zooms out to show the boat covered in flames and billowing smoke.
The strike coincided with Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley’s appearance for a series of closed-door classified briefings at the US Capitol as lawmakers began an investigation into the very first strike carried out by the military on September 2.
The sessions came after a report that Bradley ordered a follow-on attack that killed the survivors to comply with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s demands.
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While Bradley told lawmakers there was no “kill them all” order from Hegseth, a stark video of the entire series of attacks left some lawmakers with serious questions amid growing disdain for what legal experts have said could be strikes made on the basis of unverified claims of drug trafficking.
They also said killing survivors of a strike at sea could be a violation of the laws of military warfare.
Hegseth’s leadership has come under scrutiny amid growing questions about the legal basis for President Donald Trump’s extraordinary campaign to use war powers against suspected drug smugglers.
Although Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said he saw the survivors “trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for United States back over so they could stay in the fight”, Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he saw in that room “one of the most troubling things” that he’s seen in his time in public service.
“You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel,” he said, adding they “were killed by the United States.”
Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said 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”.
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