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Attack comes amid renewed scrutiny of Trump administration campaign against alleged drug smugglers.
Published On 5 Dec 2025
The United States Military has conducted another deadly strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean, killing four, according to the Pentagon.
The attack on Thursday comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump has faced renewed scrutiny over the strikes after it was revealed that a targeted boat had been struck twice during a September 2 strike.
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Experts have said such an attack could constitute a war crime.
In a post on X, the US Southern Command said the latest strike was directed by Secretary of State Pete Hegseth.
The military “conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization,” it said.
“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,” it said.
The Trump administration has killed over 80 alleged drug smugglers in the months-long campaign.
But revelations over the September 2 strike have prompted renewed scrutiny and investigations from bipartisan committees in Congress.
The White House has denied that Hegseth ordered the second strike on the vessel following an initial strike. Instead, they said the second strike that appeared to kill two survivors of the first, was ordered by Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley.
The White House has said the second strike was still in compliance with the laws of armed conflict. Legal experts have said it is a war crime to target unarmed combatants. The military’s own manual says it is illegal to fire on shipwrecks.
Bradley appeared on Capitol Hill on Thursday for a series of closed door briefings. He denied that he had been ordered to kill all people on board.
Lawmakers gave conflicting accounts of the briefings.
“Bradley was very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all,” said Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to the Associated Press news agency.
“The order was basically: Destroy the drugs, kill the 11 people on the boat,” said Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
Smith 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.”
Even prior to revelations over the September 2 double-strike attack, rights groups have said the strikes likely constitute extrajudicial killings.
The latest attack comes as the US continues to surge military assets near the coast of Venezuela, with Trump repeatedly threatening that land strikes could happen “very soon”.
Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro has said the US pressure campaign is aimed at toppling his government.
