A top US Navy commander has ordered a second round of military strikes on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat, the White House has confirmed.
“Admiral (Frank) Bradley acted well within his authority and the law” to order the additional strikes, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday.
Leavitt said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the September 2 strikes but did not give the verbal order to “kill everyone” on board, an allegation first reported by the Washington Post.
Hegseth also denied giving the order, which drew bipartisan condemnation from US lawmakers who vowed to investigate the incident for possible war crimes.
“President (Donald) Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting under the laws of war,” Leavitt said during Monday’s press briefing.
“The president has a right to take them if they are threatening the United States of America,” she said.
Media reports that Hegseth had given the directive to kill all those on board the vessel renewed concerns about the legality of US military strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.
In recent weeks, the United States has expanded its military presence in the Caribbean and carried out a series of lethal attacks on suspected drug-smuggling boats in international waters off Venezuela and Colombia, as part of what it calls an anti-narcotics operation.
More than 80 people have been killed since the beginning of September.
The Trump administration says it is acting in self-defense by destroying boats carrying illicit drugs to the United States.
“The stated intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people,” Hegseth wrote on X.
Hegseth spoke with members of Congress over the weekend who expressed concerns, Leavitt said.
Lawmakers’ concerns about the strikes increased after the Washington Post report on Friday.
Senator Roger Wicker and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Jack Reed, said in a statement at the time that the Senate Armed Services Committee “directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous surveillance to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”
The House Armed Services Committee followed suit, saying it would “take bipartisan action to gather a full account of the operation in question”.
Hegseth pushed back against the accusations on Friday, calling them “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory”.
President Trump said on Sunday that he believes his defense secretary “100%”.
The Trump administration has said that its operations in the Caribbean are a non-international armed conflict with alleged drug traffickers.
The rules of engagement in such armed conflicts – as set out in the Geneva Conventions – prohibit the targeting of wounded participants, stating that those participants should instead be captured and cared for.
Under former President Barack Obama, the US military came under scrutiny for firing multiple rounds from drones, in a practice known as the “double tap”, which sometimes resulted in unintended casualties.
On Sunday, Venezuela’s National Assembly condemned the boat attacks and promised to carry out a “rigorous and thorough investigation” into the allegations of another attack that allegedly killed two survivors.
The Government of Venezuela has accused the United States of raising tension in the region, with the aim of overthrowing the government.