{"id":173660,"date":"2025-11-29T21:47:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T21:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/pete-hegseth-denies-that-he-gave-orders-to-kill-everybody-on-alleged-narco-boat-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T21:47:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T21:47:21","slug":"pete-hegseth-denies-that-he-gave-orders-to-kill-everybody-on-alleged-narco-boat-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/pete-hegseth-denies-that-he-gave-orders-to-kill-everybody-on-alleged-narco-boat-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth denies that he gave orders to \u2018kill everybody\u2019 on alleged \u2018narco-boat\u2019 – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defense secretary called reports about his role in strike as \u2018fake news\u2019 intended to discredit US military
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth<\/a>, has declared recent reporting that he may have illegally ordered all people to be killed in a military strike in the Caribbean as \u201cfake news\u201d on Friday evening, adding that the series of strikes of people on boats had been \u201clawful under both US and international law\u201d.
Hegseth lambasted reports about his role in the strike as \u201cfabricated, inflammatory and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland\u201d.
The remarks came after a Washington Post report<\/a> this week alleged that Hegseth ordered defense officials to \u201ckill everybody\u201d traveling on a boat that was being surveilled by analysts on 2 September, the first strike of many carried out in recent months by the Trump administration. The White House said \u2013 without proof \u2013 that the people in the boats in the Caribbean, killed in Pentagon operations, were drug smugglers.
Following the Washington Post\u2019s reporting, two senators \u2013 Republican Roger Wicker and Democrat Jack Reed \u2013 released a statement saying the Senate armed services committee would be investigating the boat strikes.
\u201cThe Committee is aware of recent news reports \u2013 and the Department of Defense\u2019s initial response \u2013 regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,\u201d the senators wrote in a joint statement.
\u201cThe Committee has directed inquires to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to the circumstances.\u201d
During the 2 September operation, led by the elite counter-terrorist group Seal Team 6, a first missile strike left two survivors clinging on to the wreck, the Post reported. Adm Frank M \u201cMitch\u201d Bradley, head of Special Operations Command, reportedly ordered a second strike to kill the two survivors to comply with Hegseth\u2019s orders.
Some current and former US officials and experts have said, according to the Post, that the Trump administration\u2019s missile strikes in the Caribbean may be unlawful. To date, more than 80 people have been killed in the series of military strikes, targeting at least 22 more boats.
Historically, the US government has interdicted drug-trafficking boats in the water and prosecuted the alleged smugglers.
The Trump administration has accused all people on the boats in the Caribbean<\/a> of being drug traffickers, saying they were primarily members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that has been a major focus of the administration. Most of the boats have departed from Venezuela, where US government political pressure continues to mount.
\u201cThe declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people,\u201d Hegseth said in a social media post<\/a> on Friday evening. \u201cEvery trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization.\u201d
Earlier this year, the Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization. The administration has also accused the Venezuelan president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, of being the head of the Cartel de los Soles, a purported drug-trafficking organization made up of top Venezuelan government and military officials. Although the administration has also declared the Cartel de los Soles to be a terrorist organization, organized crime experts say<\/a> the group is a loose network of lower-ranking military officials without a strict hierarchical structure.
Trump has said that the US is attacking the boats due to high rates of fentanyl-related overdose deaths. But lawmakers, narcotics experts and former law enforcement officials have rejected that claim, since fentanyl does not come from Venezuela<\/a>.
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A report<\/a> from the Associated Press this month has cast doubts on the Trump administration\u2019s claims about the boat strikes. It details of the lives of a number of men who were killed, revealing that although some of the men were indeed running drugs, they were \u2018\u201cnot narco-terrorists or leaders of a cartel or gang\u201d.
Venezuelan officials, and some other nations, have denounced the administration\u2019s strikes in the Caribbean, saying they are a violation of due process. The Venezuelan ambassador to the UN called the attacks \u201cextrajudicial executions\u201d.
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the alleged traffickers pose a direct threat to the US, leading them to say they are in \u201carmed conflict\u201d with the groups. The Guardian reported<\/a> this week that the Trump administration is framing the strikes as a self-defense effort on behalf of US allies in the region. Throughout the course of the strikes, there have only been a few survivors, including an Ecuadorian man and a Colombian man, who were captured by the US then returned<\/a> to their home countries.
One boat strike in October, off the Pacific coast of Mexico, led the Mexican navy to begin a search-and-rescue operation<\/a> for survivors.
Internally, Department of Defense officials have been quietly raising concern about the boat strikes. A senior military lawyer disagreed with the Trump administration that the strikes are lawful and was later sidelined by other officials, NBC reported<\/a>. And Adm Alvin Holsey, the commander overseeing the attacks against boat strikes, stepped down in October. Although the reason behind Holsey\u2019s departure is unknown, the New York Times reported<\/a> he had raised internal concerns about the attacks on the boats.
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Defense secretary called reports about his role in strike as \u2018fake news\u2019 intended to discredit US militaryThe US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has declared recent reporting that he may have illegally ordered all people to be killed in a military strike in the Caribbean as \u201cfake news\u201d on Friday evening, adding that the series of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":173661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-173660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}