Survivors on ‘narco boat’ targeted by Trump order were blown apart after Hegseth verbal command to ‘kill everybody’
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly gave a verbal order to leave no survivors behind as Donald Trump’s administration launched the first of more than a dozen attacks on alleged drug-running boats that have killed more than 80 people over the last three months.
On September 2, U.S. military personnel fired a missile striking a vessel in the Caribbean that carried 11 people accused of trafficking drugs into the United States.
When two survivors emerged from the wreckage, a Special Operations commander overseeing the attack ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions to “kill everybody,” according to The Washington Post, citing officials with direct knowledge of the operation.
The two men were then “blown apart in the water,” according to the report.
News of Hegseth’s alleged command follows intense legal scrutiny from international investigators and members of Congress alleging that the Trump administration’s deadly campaign amounts to illegal extrajudicial killings, which law-of-war experts speaking to The Independent have labeled outright murder and a war crime. [Continue reading…]