Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered that all people aboard an alleged drug vessel were killed by a U.S. strike in September, prompting the military to conduct a second strike to finish off survivors, according to a new report.
Citing two people with knowledge of the operation, The Washington Post noted that a second strike was conducted to kill two survivors of the first strike, which had already destroyed the vessel and killed nine.
“The order was to kill everybody,” one of the people said about Hegseth’s orders. The strike was the first one of the ongoing military campaign that has so far killed more than 80 people.
Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised Special Operations forces for years, told the outlet that the actions amount to “murder.” Ordering the strike when surviving crew members were no longer able to pose a threat “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” he added.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell rejected the report, saying the “narrative is completely false.” “Ongoing operations to dismantle narcoterrorism and to protect the Homeland from deadly drugs have been a resounding success,” he added.
The commander who oversaw the mission, Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, justified the measure saying the survivors could have called other drug traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo.
Protocols were changed after the strike, the report added, directing troops to rescue suspected smugglers if they survived the strike. That happened in one that took place on October 16, when two men were captured and sent to Ecuador and Colombia.
Originally published on Latin Times
