U.S. lawmakers demand answers to reports of Venezuelan Hergssey boat attack

U.S. lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration for answers over a military strike on suspected Venezuelan drug-trafficking ships after reports that a follow-up strike was ordered to kill survivors of the initial attack.

Following the release of the report, a Republican-led Pentagon committee vowed to conduct “rigorous oversight” of attacks on U.S. ships in the Caribbean.

on Friday, washington post According to reports, on September 2, the United States launched an attack on a ship, killing two survivors, but launched a second attack in order to carry out the order of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “kill everyone on board.”

Hegseth denounced the report as “fake news,” and President Donald Trump said he believed him “100 percent.”

The United States has expanded its military presence in the Caribbean and launched a series of deadly strikes on suspected drug smuggling vessels in international waters near Venezuela and Colombia as part of what it called a counternarcotics operation.

More than 80 people have been killed since early September.

The Trump administration says it acted in self-defense by destroying a ship carrying illegal drugs into the United States.

Secretary Hegseth “issued verbal instructions” to “kill everyone on board one such vessel,” and the special operations commander overseeing the operation “ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions,” The Washington Post wrote in a report on Friday.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers appearing on talk shows on Sunday said they support a congressional review of U.S. military strikes against ships suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean.

Leaders said they did not know whether the Post’s report was true, but they said attacking survivors of the initial missile strike would pose significant legal problems.

“If this is true, it rises to the level of a war crime,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Republican Congressman Mike Turner said Congress had no information about subsequent strikes.

“Obviously, if this happened, the consequences would be very serious and I agree it would be an illegal act,” Turner, the former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, told CBS.

This comes after the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee announced on Friday that they planned to conduct “rigorous oversight” of the attack.

“The committee is aware of recent news reports and the Department of Defense’s initial response regarding subsequent attacks on suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Southern Command area of ​​responsibility,” the committee’s Republican chairman, Sen. Roger Wicker, and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed said in a statement.

They said: “The department has been referred to the committee for investigation and we will conduct rigorous oversight to establish the facts relevant to these circumstances.”

The House Armed Services Committee followed suit, saying they were taking “bipartisan action to gather complete information about this operation.”

In a post on He wrote that the series of attacks on ships were “legal under both U.S. and international law.”

“Every trafficker we kill was affiliated with a designated terrorist organization,” he wrote.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, President Trump defended his defense secretary, saying: “He said he didn’t say that. I believe him 100 percent.”

Trump said the government “will look into” the matter, adding “I don’t want that – don’t want a second attack.”

Venezuela’s National Assembly on Sunday condemned the attack and vowed to conduct a “rigorous and thorough investigation” into allegations of a second attack that killed two survivors.

The Venezuelan government accuses the United States of fanning tensions in the region with the aim of overthrowing the government.

The United States is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the US military’s legal adviser has previously stated that the United States should “act in a manner consistent with its provisions.”

Under the convention, countries agree not to interfere with ships operating in international waters. There are limited exceptions that allow countries to seize ships, such as “hot pursuit” where a ship is pursued from a country’s waters to the high seas.

Professor Luke Moffitt of Queen’s University Belfast said recently: “Force can be used to stop a ship, but usually this should be a non-lethal measure.” Tell the BBC to verify.