Confirms Admiral authorised second strike on accused narcotics boat.
WASHINGTON: According to the White House, a US admiral acting on behalf of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth approved a second strike on survivors of an initial attack on an alleged drug smuggling boat.
The legitimacy of the Trump administration’s lethal strikes against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific has been called into doubt, and rumours of a follow-up attack on survivors have prompted more accusations of war crimes.
Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro has accused Washington of using drug trafficking as a pretext for “imposing regime change” in Caracas and rejected a “slave’s peace” for the region, as worries of US military intervention grow.
A total of 11 persons were killed in the two strikes in early September, the first of a months-long military assault that has so far left more than 80 dead.
Trump’s government maintains that it is effectively at war with accused “narco-terrorists,” and the White House said Admiral Frank Bradley, who presently oversees US Special Operations Command, behaved lawfully and properly in ordering a second strike.
Bradley “worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure that the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.