US lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration for answers about military strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats, after a report alleged that a follow-up strike was ordered to kill survivors of an initial attack.
Republican-led committees overseeing the Pentagon have vowed to conduct “vigorous oversight” into the US boat strikes in the Caribbean, following the report.
On Friday, The Washington Post reported that a US strike on a boat on 2 September left two survivors, but that a second attack was carried out to comply with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders to “kill everybody” on board – raising fresh legality questions.
Hegseth decried the report as “fake news”.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said he believed his defence secretary “100%”.
In recent weeks, the US has expanded its military presence in the Caribbean and carried out a series of lethal strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in international waters off Venezuela and Colombia, as part of what it calls is an anti-narcotics operation.
More than 80 people have been killed since early September.
The Trump administration says it is acting in self-defence by destroying boats carrying illicit drugs to the US.
In its report on Friday, which has not been verified by the BBC, The Washington Post wrote that Secretary Hegseth “gave a spoken directive” to “kill everybody” on board one such vessel, and a Special Operations commander overseeing the operation “ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions”.
The Trump administration has sought to justify its operations in the Caribbean by saying it is in a non-international armed conflict with the alleged drug traffickers.
The rules of engagement in such armed conflicts – as set out in the Geneva Conventions – forbid the targeting of wounded participants, saying that those participants should instead by apprehended and cared for.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers appearing on US talk shows on Sunday said they supported congressional reviews of the boat strikes.
The leaders said they did not know whether The Washington Post’s report was true, but that attacking survivors of an initial missile strike presented major legal concerns.
“This rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” said Democrat Senator Tim Kaine on CBS Face the Nation.
Republican lawmaker Mike Turner acknowledged that Congress did not have information that the follow-up strike had happened.
“Obviously if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” Turner, a former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, told CBS.
The comments follow the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee’s announcement on Friday that it planned to conduct “vigorous oversight” on the strikes.
“The Committee is aware of recent news reports – and the Department of Defense’s initial response – regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” the committee’s Republican chair, Senator Roger Wicker, and his Democrat counterpart, Senator Jack Reed, said in a statement.
“The Committee has directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances,” they said.
The House Armed Services Committee followed suit, saying it was “taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question”.
In a post on X, Hegseth pushed back against accusations against him, calling them “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory”. He wrote that the series of strikes on boats were “lawful under both US and international law”.
“Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” he wrote.
On Sunday, talking to reporters aboard Air Force One, President Trump defended his defence secretary, saying: “He said he did not say that. And I believe him 100%.”
Trump said the administration “will look into” the matter and added “I wouldn’t have wanted that – not a second strike”.
On Sunday, Venezuela’s National Assembly condemned the boat strikes and vowed to carry out a “rigorous and thorough investigation” into the accusations of a second attack that allegedly killed two survivors.
The Venezuelan government has accused the US of stoking tensions in the region, with the aim of toppling the government.
In his comments on Sunday, Trump confirmed he had recently spoken to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but would not comment further other than to say: “I wouldn’t say it went well or badly. It was a phone call.”
The US is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which is another relevant aspect of international law. However, the US military’s legal advisers have previously said that the US should “act in a manner consistent with its provisions”.
Under that convention, countries agree not to interfere with vessels operating in international waters. There are limited exceptions to this, which allow a state to seize a ship, such as a “hot pursuit” where a vessel is chased from a country’s waters into the high seas.
“Force can be used to stop a boat but generally this should be non-lethal measures,” Prof Luke Moffett of Queens University Belfast recently told BBC Verify.
