US EditionTrump defends Hegseth over reports of a second strike on alleged drug boat
Trump defended Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amid reports of a lethal follow-up strike on a Venezuelan drug boat that killed survivors, with at least 83 deaths in the campaign.
- On Nov. 30, President Donald Trump said he would look into whether U.S. military carried out a second strike on a Caribbean boat on Sept. 2.
- Washington says the September deployment aims to curb drug trafficking, while The Washington Post and CNN reported unnamed sources linking directives to US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that led to follow-on strikes.
- U.S. forces saw two survivors clinging to a burning vessel and then reportedly struck the boat again; since September, strikes on at least 21 boats have killed 83 people.
- Mr Trump defended Pete Hegseth, saying `He said he did not say that, and I believe him, 100 percent`, while Mike Rogers and Adam Smith pledged bipartisan oversight on Nov. 29.
- Legal questions and the risk of broader action position this controversy as a potential diplomatic and judicial flashpoint, with Volker Turk urging investigation and Trump threatening land strikes on Venezuela and closed airspace on Nov. 29.
84 Articles
84 Articles
Analysis by Aaron Blake: For days, President Donald Trump and his allies harshly criticized half a dozen Democrats for a video in which they urged soldiers to disobey any potentially illegal government orders. Now there is a concrete example of what those Democrats were referring to. In early September, the U.S. military carried out a follow-up attack—known as a “double-hit” strike—against a suspected drug-laden vessel in the Caribbean after the…
readingeagle
By BEN FINLEY WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military would have committed a crime if it had killed the survivors of an attack on a boat supposedly carrying drugs, according to law specialists. It doesn’t matter if the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, as the Donald Trump government claims. A fatal attack of this kind would have violated the laws of time of peace and those governing the armed conflict, experts say. “I can’t imagine t…
The US Congress demands control over attacks on drug ships. A report accuses Hegseth of deadly orders. Trump defends him.
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