US military conducts strike on another suspected drug boat as probe into the first strike begins

WASHINGTON AP U S Southern Command revealed that it had conducted another strike against a small boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Thursday following a pause of almost three weeks It is the nd strike the U S military has carried out against boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that the Trump administration claimed were trafficking drugs There were four casualties in Thursday s strike according to the social media post bringing the death toll of the campaign to at least people In a video that accompanied the announcement a small boat can be seen moving across the water before it is suddenly consumed by a large explosion The video then zooms out to show the boat covered in flames and billowing smoke The strike was conducted the same day Adm Frank Mitch Bradley appeared for a series of closed-door classified briefings at the U S Capitol as lawmakers began an examination into the very first strike carried out by the military on Sept The sessions came after a record that Bradley ordered a follow-on attack that killed the survivors to comply with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth s demands Bradley narrated lawmakers there was no kill them all order from Hegseth but a stark video of the entire series of attacks left selected lawmakers with serious questions Legal experts have disclosed killing survivors of a strike at sea could be a violation of the laws of military warfare Bradley spoke to lawmakers alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Dan Caine in a classified session His testimony provided fresh information at a crucial moment as Hegseth s leadership comes under scrutiny but it did little to resolve growing questions about the legal basis for President Donald Trump s extraordinary campaign to use war powers against suspected drug handlers Lawmakers offered differing accounts of what they saw on the video Republican Sen Tom Cotton of Arkansas announced he saw the survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for United States back over so they could stay in the fight Connecticut Rep Jim Himes the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee announced What I saw in that room was one of the the majority troubling things I ve seen in my time in citizens system You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel he declared adding they were killed by the United States Washington Rep Adam Smith the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee noted the survivors were basically two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat drifting in the water until the missiles come and kill them Source