US lawmaker condemns strike on alleged Caribbean drugs boat amid growing anger

A Democratic congressman described an unedited video of an extrajudicial military strike that killed two survivors in the Caribbean as "one of the most troubling scenes" he's seen in public service, as human rights advocates and policy experts lined up to demand the video's public release.

- Joseph Gedeon Aram Roston Washington Lucy Campbell

Congressman Jim Himes, the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, made the remarks yesterday after viewing footage in a classified briefing of the 2 September followup attack that killed two men clinging to wreckage off the coast of Venezuela. His assessment came as experts called the operation murder under international law.

Donald Trump posted video of the initial strike on his Truth Social platform shortly after the operation, but no footage of the followup attack, which killed the two remaining crew members, has been released.

When pressed about whether he supported killing survivors, Trump said he supported the decision to destroy the boats and that those piloting them were guilty of trying to kill Americans. Pentagon secretary Pete Hegseth said he didn't see any survivors, explaining that it "exploded, there's fire, there's smoke", adding: "This is called the fog of war."

On Wednesday Trump told reporters in the Oval Office he had no objections to making public the video of the second strike. "I don't know what they have, but whatever they have, we'd certainly release, no problem," Trump said, adding that the strikes were saving American lives.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they would follow Trump's musings to release the footage.

This week marked intensifying bipartisan congressional scrutiny over the operation. The Washington Post first reported that Hegseth had given a verbal directive to military commanders to ensure no survivors remained.

Marcus Stanley, the director of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said the strikes themselves constitute potential war crimes even before the killing of survivors. "You're already talking about entities that don't have any means of defending themselves," he said. "This is a totally extrajudicial process."