“The two countries also signed a Statement of Intent to expand joint military cooperation with full respect for the sovereignty and laws of both countries,” President Irfaan Ali said, following talks here with senior US officials, including US Senior Advisor to the Secretary of War, Patrick Weaver, and the Acting Assistant Secretary of War for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Joseph Humire on Tuesday.
Archiv: 28-11-2025 Washington Post report: On September 2nd US SecDef Hegseth ordered a JSOC team to carry out second airstrike on survivors on civilian vessel in the Caribbean ("kill them all")
Security experts reject PM’s claim that unflagged vessels can be attacked
(December 10, 2025)
Former director of the National Coastal Surveillance Radar Centre and National Transformation Alliance (NTA) political leader, retired Coast Guard commander Norman Dindial, said that the Prime Minister’s claim is legally unsound. He said flagless vessels are classified as stateless, not pirates, and cannot be considered lawful targets.
His comments follow renewed questions about the September 2 strike near Trinidad and Tobago’s waters, now under scrutiny for allegedly killing two survivors in a second hit. Speaking outside Parliament on Tuesday, Persad-Bissessar said the incident “had little to do with Trinidad and Tobago” and suggested the unregistered vessel may have been viewed as carrying pirates. Dindial dismissed that interpretation.
PM on US ‘double tap’ strike: Unflagged vessel treated as pirate ship
(December 10, 2025)
Asked Sunday about the “double tap” strike, Persad-Bissessar had asked for more time to research the matter.
Asked again yesterday outside the Parliament, the Prime Minister said, “I don’t see how it applies to me or what it has to do with me or Trinidad and Tobago. The United States is a sovereign nation and they are free to exercise their sovereignty in manners that they see or deem fit. I cannot be judge and jury here to determine whether they are right or whether they are wrong. Those are not within our jurisdiction or my remit.”
But Persad-Bissessar maintained that any vessel sailing without a national flag risks being classified as a pirate ship and, as such, would not be entitled to the same protections afforded to legitimate maritime vessels.
Admiral ousted by Hegseth talks privately to lawmakers
(December 9, 2025)
Adm. Alvin Holsey, who was pushed out of his post as the top U.S. military commander overseeing operations in Latin America, spoke privately with several lawmakers on Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the meeting — an indication that Congress is quietly pursuing a bipartisan inquiry into the Sept. 2 boat strike in the Caribbean Sea.
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Also on Tuesday, House and Senate leaders known as the „Gang of Eight“ are hearing separately from President Donald Trump‘s national security team: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Hegseth won‘t commit to letting Congress see video of deadly boat strike, Schumer says
WASHINGTON (TND) — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth would not commit to showing all members of Congress the full video of a deadly double strike on an alleged drug boat on September 2.
He shared the news after he attended a closed-door meeting with Hegseth, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as fellow top lawmakers known as the „Gang of Eight“ on Tuesday afternoon.
Sen. Warner says „Gang of Eight“ wasn‘t shown Sept. 2 boat strikes video in Hegseth-Rubio briefing
(8 hours ago)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Tuesday about the Sept. 2 strikes on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean. CBS News congressional correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns has the details.
Shipwrecked or Not, All These Bombings are Murder
(December 5, 2025)
“Intercepting purported drug boats is a law enforcement operation, subject to policing standards derived from international human rights law, which holds that all people have the rights to life and a fair trial and only allows states to use lethal force when an imminent threat to life exists and less extreme means, like capture, are insufficient.
“A state intentionally killing someone outside those circumstances is committing an extrajudicial execution, a form of murder, no matter what crime the person is alleged to have committed.”
‘All of Them Constitute Murder,’ Amnesty Says of Trump Boat Bombings
Human rights organization Amnesty International is cautioning critics of the Trump administration’s boat-bombing spree against getting bogged down in the precise details of each individual strike if it means losing sight of the bigger picture.
Daphne Eviatar, director for security and human rights for Amnesty International USA, said on Friday that it would be a mistake to merely condemn the Trump administration for launching a double-tap strike aimed at killing shipwrecked survivors of an initial attack, because the entire campaign of bombing vessels based on the suspicion that they are carrying illegal narcotics is unlawful.
Exclusive: Survivors clinging to capsized boat didn’t radio for backup, admiral overseeing double-tap strike tells lawmakers
For a little under an hour — 41 minutes, according to a separate US official — Bradley and the rest of the US military command center discussed what to do as they watched the men struggle to overturn what was left of their boat, the sources said.
Ultimately, Bradley told lawmakers, he ordered a second strike to destroy the remains of the vessel, killing the two survivors, on the grounds that it appeared that part of the vessel remained afloat because it still held cocaine, according to one of the sources. The survivors could hypothetically have floated to safety, been rescued, and carried on with trafficking the drugs, the logic went.
The other source with direct knowledge of the briefing called that rationale “f**king insane.”
Lawmakers see video of second strike on boat survivors, say admiral testified there was no kill order
GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, spoke with reporters after the briefings. They both said Bradley told them that he had not been ordered to leave no survivors. The initial Post report quoted an anonymous source as saying that, before the first strike, Hegseth verbally ordered that everyone on the boat be taken out. „The order was to kill everybody,“ the Post‘s story quoted the source as saying. Hegseth has denied the Post‘s account.
Pete Hegseth faces deepening scrutiny from Congress over boat strikes
Trump, a Republican, has largely stood by his defense secretary, among the most important Cabinet-level positions. But the decisions by Wicker, alongside House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers of Alabama and the top Democrats on the committees, to open investigations provide a rare moment of Congress asserting itself and its authority to conduct oversight of the Trump administration.
Slotkin Statement on Washington Post Report on Hegseth’s Cartel Strike Orders
(December 2, 2025)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) released the following statement regarding reports from the Washington Post that on September 2, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued an order to kill all eleven people on the suspected drug boat in the Caribbean:
“At the Pentagon, the buck stops with the Secretary of Defense. Period.
“True leaders own the calls they make and take responsibility for their actions. Secretary Hegseth should release the full video of the strike and lay out publicly what happened, without throwing the uniformed military under the bus.
“Since Signalgate back in the spring, Secretary Hegseth’s leadership has been a distraction from the critical missions of our military, and I called for him to resign then. The President himself yesterday told the country that he would not have wanted a second strike.
“If this reporting is true, President Trump should fire the Secretary, as he did other underperforming cabinet members in his first Administration.”
WATCH: Slotkin Highlights 2016 Video, Hegesth says U.S. troops will not follow unlawful orders from the President
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) shared a 2016 video, first reported in CNN, where Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told an audience that the U.S. military “won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief.” Words remarkably similar to Slotkin’s in a video she posted recently where she simply restated the law.
Major Pete Hegseth, in 2016 said:
“If you are doing something that is completely unlawful and ruthless then there is a consequence for that. That’s why the military said it won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief. There’s a standard; there’s an ethos; there’s a belief that we are above so many things are enemies or others would do.”
Donald Trump Faces Growing Republican Backlash Over Foreign Policy Moves
Some conservative and libertarian-minded Republicans have broken with Trump over his approach to Venezuela. Many Republicans have embraced an “America First” view of foreign policy and oppose regime change in other countries if they do not believe it benefits Americans.
(…)
Trump’s proposal for a peace deal on the Russia-Ukraine war has also drawn scrutiny. Critics have raised concerns that the deal may be too favorable to Russia, pointing to proposals that Ukraine would give up the eastern Donbas region and shrink its army to end a war started by Russia more than three years ago.
Trump and Hegseth insist they didn’t know of follow-up strike that killed survivors on suspected drug boat
But Hegseth on Tuesday also denied any direct role in targeting the survivors, saying he’d empowered Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley to make all of the operational decisions — and had left the room well before it became clear that some of the people on the boat had survived.
“I watched that first strike live,” Hegseth said. “I didn’t stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs, so I moved on to my next meeting.”
The defense secretary did not learn about the second strike, he added, until hours later.
What to Know About the Admiral Named by Hegseth as Boat Strike Comes Under Scrutiny
During the Sept. 2 strikes, Bradley was leading the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which oversees elite military teams, handles complex and sensitive military missions, and at times works with the CIA. In October, he assumed command of the JSOC’s parent group, the United States Special Operations Command, which oversees the military’s special operations in more than 80 countries.
How to point the finger at someone while pretending to support him.
(…)
Hegseth Throws Admiral Under the Bus, Says Navy Leader Ordered Boat Survivors Killed
Fox News Chief Political Analyst Brit Hume quote-tweeted Hegseth and wrote, “How to point the finger at someone while pretending to support him.”
Earlier in the day, Hume said on Fox News that the story could be “a big problem” for the Trump administration.
Over on CNN, Ryan Goodman, former general counsel for the Department of Defense, stated that if Hegseth ordered everyone on the boat killed, the secretary is ultimately responsible for the second strike, regardless of Bradley’s involvement.
White House says admiral approved second deadly boat strike
Hegseth “authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” Leavitt said. “The president has made it quite clear that if narco-terrorists again are trafficking illegal drugs towards the United States, he has the authority to kill them. That is what this administration is doing.”
Boat Strike Revelations Draw Bipartisan Outrage, Spurring Push for Hearings as Soon as ‘Next Week’
Lawmakers from both parties were raising the term “war crime” on Monday, as pressure mounts on the Trump Administration to release military video evidence and explain the legal basis for its escalating campaign in the Caribbean.
In the Senate, the calls for oversight were coalescing around Senator Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and has already directed an inquiry to the Pentagon and pledged “vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.” Several Senate Democrats told TIME on Monday that they have confidence in Wicker leading the investigation into the strike, but urged him to move quickly.
White House Confirms Second Strike on Alleged Drug Boat and Defends Move as Legal
(December 1, 2025)
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command acted “within his authority and the law” when striking an alleged drug boat a second time on Sept. 2 after the first strike left survivors.
The White House has scrambled in recent days to respond to reporting that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered an elite military unit to kill everyone on board an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean in early September, leading the commander to send a second strike that killed survivors from the first attack.
Congress steps in as questions mount over who authorized a second strike at sea
PARKS: How big of a deal are these congressional investigations?
GARRETT: So legally, Congress does have real powerful levers and tools at their disposal. You know, they can call hearings. They can ask for documents, and even, you know, they have the subpoena power. But we‘ll have to wait and see how aggressive these inquiries are.
Lawmakers Suggest Follow-Up Boat Strike Could Be a War Crime
“Obviously if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” Representative Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio and a former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said on CBS that if the report was accurate, the attack “rises to the level of a war crime.” And on CNN, when asked if he believed a second strike to kill survivors constituted a war crime, Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, answered, “It seems to.”
House committee seeks ‘full accounting’ of boat strike after WaPo ‘kill everybody’ report
The leaders of the House Armed Services Committee said late Saturday they are seeking “full accounting” of an early September U.S. military attack against an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean after a report alleged that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered U.S. troops to “kill everybody” aboard the vessel.
“This committee is committed to providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) military operations in the Caribbean,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chair of the House committee, and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the panel, said in a joint statement.
Senators vow oversight after report Hegseth told troops to ‘kill everybody’ in boat strike
Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) issued a statement Saturday vowing to conduct “vigorous oversight” on Caribbean strikes after a report surfaced that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. military to “kill everybody” aboard an alleged drug vessel.
Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all
(November 28, 2025)
As two men clung to a stricken, burning ship targeted by SEAL Team 6, the Joint Special Operations commander followed the defense secretary’s order to leave no survivors.