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.

Torrential rain has left Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia under water

Flooding and landslides have killed at least 954 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia following tropical storms in recent days, with efforts under way to help thousands affected by the extreme weather.

Arriving in North Sumatra on Monday, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said the government’s priority was “how to immediately send the necessary aid”.

“There are several isolated villages that, God willing, we can reach,” Prabowo said, adding that the government was deploying helicopters and aircraft to aid the relief effort.

Prabowo has come under increasing pressure to declare a national emergency in response to flooding and landslides that have killed at least 442 people, with hundreds more missing.

Unlike his Sri Lankan counterpart, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Prabowo has so far refrained from publicly calling for international assistance.

Indonesia’s government has sent two hospital ships and three warships carrying aid to some of the worst-hit areas, where many roads remain impassable.

In Sungai Nyalo village, about 100km (62 miles) from West Sumatra’s capital Padang, floodwaters had mostly receded on Sunday, leaving homes, vehicles and crops coated in thick grey mud.

“Most villagers chose to stay; they didn’t want to leave their houses behind,” Idris, 55, who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name, told the AFP news agency.

Sri Lanka seeks aid

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, the government has called for international aid and is using military helicopters to reach people stranded by flooding and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah.

At least 334 people have been killed, Sri Lanka’s disaster agency said on Sunday, with many more still missing.

A helicopter pilot “tragically lost his life” while making an emergency landing “during a mission to support flood-affected communities in Lunuwila,” north of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s Air Force said in a post on Facebook on Monday.

Officials said the extent of damage in the worst-affected central region was only just being revealed as relief workers cleared roads blocked by fallen trees and mudslides.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who declared a state of emergency to deal with the disaster, pledged to build back.

“We are facing the largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history,” Dissanayake said in an address to the nation.

“Certainly, we will build a better nation than what existed before.”

Death toll rises in southern Thailand

Thai authorities on Monday said the death toll from ongoing flooding in the south of the country had risen to at least 176 people.

The government has rolled out relief measures, but there has been growing public criticism of the flood response, and two local officials have been suspended over their alleged failures, according to AFP.

Across the border in Malaysia, where heavy rains also inundated large stretches of land in Perlis state, two people were killed.

Year of deadly floods across Asia

This week’s floods and landslides are the latest extreme weather events to devastate Southeast Asian countries in recent weeks, including two typhoons that hit the Philippines within a week of each other last month, killing at least 242 people.

The flooding that hit Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia was also exacerbated by a rare tropical storm that dumped heavy rain on Sumatra Island in particular.

Climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of storms and producing more heavy rain events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture.