The U.S. military has carried out a new strike on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board. The operation comes the same day a Navy admiral briefed Congress behind closed doors about an earlier, highly controversial strike that killed survivors of an initial attack.
New strike in the Eastern Pacific
U.S. Southern Command said Thursday that a unit known as Southern Spear conducted a “lethal kinetic strike” on a vessel in international waters in the Eastern Pacific.
According to a statement posted on social media, a designated terrorist organization was operating the boat. They say it was carrying illicit narcotics, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route.
Southern Command said the strike killed four male “narco-terrorists” on the vessel. A 21-second video clip shows the moment the missile strikes the boat.
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The Pentagon has framed the mission as part of a broader campaign to use military force against alleged drug-smuggling networks at sea.
Briefings on the Sept. 2 survivor strike
Thursday’s strike landed as the Pentagon is already under bipartisan scrutiny for a Sept. 2 attack on another suspected drug boat in the Caribbean.
In that case, U.S. forces first struck the vessel, then fired follow-up missiles that killed the remaining survivors. The second strike has become the focus of a growing debate over rules of engagement and the laws of war.
On Thursday, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the Navy officer who oversaw that mission, and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with senior lawmakers in a series of classified briefings on Capitol Hill.
They showed members the unedited video of the initial strike and the follow-up attack that killed two survivors.
Bradley told lawmakers there was no order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “kill them all” or “grant no quarter,” rejecting earlier public claims that Hegseth directly directed the second strike.
Deep divide in Congress
Republicans and Democrats emerged from the briefing with different interpretations of what they saw.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, defended the Sept. 2 operation as lawful and justified. He called the strikes “righteous” and the targets “narco-terrorists” whose drugs were “destined for the United States to kill thousands of Arkansans and millions of Americans.”
Democrats, however, said the footage was “deeply troubling” and should be released to the public.
Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said what he saw was “one of the most troubling things” of his public career. He described the “two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel,” who “were killed by the United States.”
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Previous reporting has found that the Sept. 2 strike was the first in a months-long campaign that has included strikes on at least 21 vessels and killed 83 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Thursday’s Eastern Pacific strike brings the death toll even higher.
Several Democrats are calling for Hegseth to testify under oath, for the administration to release the full Sept. 2 video, and to provide its full legal rationale. So far, the administration has rebuffed the requests, even as the strikes continue.
