{"id":4167,"date":"2025-12-05T02:40:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T02:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/12\/05\/us-military-kills-four-in-latest-strike-on-boat-in-the-caribbean\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T02:40:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T02:40:31","slug":"us-military-kills-four-in-latest-strike-on-boat-in-the-caribbean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/12\/05\/us-military-kills-four-in-latest-strike-on-boat-in-the-caribbean\/","title":{"rendered":"US military kills four in latest strike on boat in the Caribbean"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><em>Attack comes amid renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration\u2019s campaign against alleged drug smugglers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>The United States military has conducted another deadly strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean, killing four, according to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n<p>The attack on Thursday comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump has faced <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/12\/4\/has-the-pentagon-really-exonerated-pete-hegseth-over-signal-leaks\">renewed scrutiny<\/a> over the strikes after it was revealed that a targeted boat had been struck twice during a September 2 attack.<\/p>\n<section>\n<h2>Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span>list of 3 items<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>list 1 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/12\/4\/last-foreign-carriers-halt-flights-to-venezuela-after-trumps-airspace-ban\">Last foreign carriers halt flights to Venezuela after Trump\u2019s airspace ban<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 2 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/12\/4\/meet-the-uss-drug-running-friends-a-history-of-narcotics-involvement\">Meet the US\u2019s drug running friends: A history of narcotics involvement<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 3 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/12\/4\/amid-trump-threats-what-has-the-uss-war-on-drugs-achieved-in-50-years\">Amid Trump threats, what has the US\u2019s \u2018war on drugs\u2019 achieved in 50 years?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>Experts have said such an attack could constitute a war crime.<\/p>\n<p>In a post on X, the US Southern Command said the latest strike was directed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n<p>The military \u201cconducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIntelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration has killed more than 80 alleged drug smugglers in the months-long campaign.<\/p>\n<p>But revelations over the September 2 strike have prompted renewed scrutiny and investigations from bipartisan committees in Congress.<\/p>\n<p>The White House has denied that Hegseth ordered the second strike on the vessel following an initial strike. Instead, they said the second strike that appeared to kill two survivors of the first attack was ordered by Admiral Frank \u201cMitch\u201d Bradley.<\/p>\n<p>The White House has said the second strike was still in compliance with the laws of armed conflict. Legal experts have said it is a war crime to target unarmed combatants. The military\u2019s own manual says it is illegal to fire on shipwrecks.<\/p>\n<p>Bradley appeared on Capitol Hill on Thursday for a series of closed-door briefings. He denied that he had been ordered to kill all people on board.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers gave conflicting accounts of the briefings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBradley was very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all,\u201d said Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to The Associated Press news agency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe order was basically: Destroy the drugs, kill the 11 people on the boat,\u201d said Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Smith said video of the attack showed the survivors were \u201cbasically two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat, drifting in the water \u2013 until the missiles come and kill them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even prior to revelations over the September 2 double-strike attack, rights groups have said the strikes were tantamount to extrajudicial killings.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, the family of Alejandro Carranza, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/12\/3\/family-of-man-slain-in-a-us-boat-strike-in-the-caribbean-lodges-complaint\">filed a complaint<\/a> to a regional rights body, saying the Colombian fisherman\u2019s right to life was violated when he was wrongfully killed in a US strike in September.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration has framed the attack as part of a broader \u201cwar\u201d against so-called \u201cnarco-terrorists\u201d, but no declaration of war or use of force laws have been approved by Congress.<\/p>\n<p>The latest attack comes as the US <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/12\/3\/us-venezuela-tensions-your-questions-answered\">continues to surge<\/a> military assets near the coast of Venezuela, with Trump repeatedly threatening that land strikes could happen \u201cvery soon\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Venezuela\u2019s leader, Nicolas Maduro, has said the US pressure campaign is aimed at toppling his government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Attack comes amid renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration\u2019s campaign against alleged drug smugglers. The United States military has conducted another deadly strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean, killing four, according to the Pentagon. The attack on Thursday comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump has faced renewed scrutiny &#8230; <a title=\"US military kills four in latest strike on boat in the Caribbean\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/12\/05\/us-military-kills-four-in-latest-strike-on-boat-in-the-caribbean\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about US military kills four in latest strike on boat in the Caribbean\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}