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17.12.2025 - 04:35 [ ABC News ]

Hegseth says Pentagon won’t release video of strike on drug boat survivors to public

At issue is whether the Sept. 2 military strike on the alleged drug boat amounted to a war crime, as some lawmakers have suggested. Officials have confirmed there were four military strikes against the boat — the first strike killing nine of the 11 people aboard. Some 40 minutes later, a second strike was ordered to kill the remaining two survivors. Two more strikes were ordered to sink the boat, officials say.

Trump initially said he would release the video, telling reporters on Dec. 3 “whatever they have, we’d certainly release, no problem.” Trump later backtracked, saying he would defer to Hegseth.

14.12.2025 - 10:41 [ Middle East Eye ]

Israeli military confirms killing of top Hamas commander Raad Saad in Gaza City drone strike

Hamas issued a statement condemning the attack, saying it represented „a blatant violation“ of the fragile Gaza ceasefire agreement which came into effect in October.

“This crime reaffirms that the [Israeli] occupation is deliberately seeking to undermine and sabotage the ceasefire agreement through its escalating and continuous violations,” the group said in a post on Telegram.

It did not confirm whether a member of the group had been targeted in the attack.

US news site Axios reported that Israel had not warned the US in advance of the strike.

14.12.2025 - 09:28 [ AirAndSpaceForces.com ]

US Needs Troops in Syria to Stop ISIS Comeback, CENTCOM Nominee Says

(June 24, 2025)

The U.S. and the SDF stayed clear of Syria’s civil war, which led to the overthrow of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Russia.

The country’s new president is Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the Islamist rebel group Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that swept to power last December and has vowed to establish a tolerant, multi-ethnic state.

After months of deliberation, the U.S. has thrown its support behind the new Syrian leader. President Trump announced last month that he would lift sanctions on the country, a decision he made with encouragement from Saudi Arabia while Trump was in the Middle East.

10.12.2025 - 07:33 [ ABC News ]

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.
(…)
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.

10.12.2025 - 07:19 [ KomoNews.com ]

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.

10.12.2025 - 07:16 [ CBS News ]

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.

09.12.2025 - 10:19 [ theGuardian.com ]

Israeli surveillance targets US and allies at joint base planning Gaza aid and security, say sources

(today)

The scale of intelligence gathering at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) prompted the US commander of the base, Lt Gen Patrick Frank, to summon an Israeli counterpart for a meeting to tell him that “recording has to stop here”.

Staff and visitors from other countries have also raised concerns about Israel recording inside the CMCC. Some have been told to avoid sharing sensitive information because of the risk it could be collected and exploited.

The US military declined to comment when asked about Israeli surveillance activities. The Israeli military declined to comment on Frank’s demand to halt recording and noted that conversations inside the CMCC are unclassified.

07.12.2025 - 23:04 [ Times of Israel ]

Touring the Strip, IDF chief Zamir says Gaza ceasefire line ‘a new border’

(today)

“We will not allow Hamas to reestablish itself. We control large parts of the Gaza Strip and stand along [strategic] lines. The Yellow Line is a new border line, a forward defensive line for the communities and an offensive line,” Zamir said during a tour of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, in remarks provided by the IDF.

07.12.2025 - 21:19 [ Amnesty International ]

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.”

07.12.2025 - 21:18 [ Common Dreams ]

‘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.

05.12.2025 - 03:34 [ CNN ]

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.”

05.12.2025 - 03:26 [ CBS News ]

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.

04.12.2025 - 10:25 [ Associated Press ]

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.

03.12.2025 - 18:34 [ Elissa Slotkin, U.S. Senator for Michigan ]

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.”

03.12.2025 - 17:17 [ Kyiv Independent ]

Ukraine‘s top negotiators to again meet Trump‘s envoys after Moscow talks, Zelensky says

After their visit to Brussels, the two Ukrainian officials will begin preparations for talks with Trump‘s envoys, Zelensky said, without providing additional details.

03.12.2025 - 09:49 [ CNN ]

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.

02.12.2025 - 20:27 [ Time Magazine ]

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.

02.12.2025 - 19:59 [ Brit Hume, Chief Political Analyst, Fox News Channel / X ]

How to point the finger at someone while pretending to support him.

(…)

02.12.2025 - 19:57 [ Yahoo ]

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.

02.12.2025 - 19:50 [ Politico.com ]

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.”

26.11.2025 - 17:31 [ CNC3.co.tt ]

US Secretary of War visits region today; Maduro officials hold closed door talks

(November 25, 2025)

War Secretary Pete Hegseth will travel to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, today to meet the country’s top leaders, including President Luis Abinader, Minister of Defence Lt Gen Carlos Antonio Fernández Onofre and other officials, the Associated Press reported yesterday.

The announcement came the same day that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar met yesterday.

26.11.2025 - 17:30 [ Reuters ]

US military‘s Caine meets with Trinidad prime minister

(November 25, 2025)

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine told Persad-Bissessar that the United States remained committed to working with Trinidad and Tobago to „address shared threats and deepen collaboration across the Caribbean,“ the Pentagon said.

24.11.2025 - 19:40 [ Times of Israel ]

In clash with Zamir, Katz orders re-evaluation of external probe of IDF’s Oct.7 investigations

Additionally, Katz says that his position, whereby officers who served in the Southern Command on October 7 will not be promoted, “remains unchanged.” This comes after Zamir ruled that there was no issue with the promotion of three senior officers, whose promotions were previously held up or canceled by Katz.

24.11.2025 - 19:22 [ Middle East Eye ]

Israel’s army chief dismisses officers for ‘failure to prevent’ 7 October attack

(November 23, 2025)

Israeli chief of staff Eyal Zamir on Sunday dismissed senior officers in the military over „failure to prevent“ the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas, local media reported.

Zamir ended the service of several retired generals, including the former Military Intelligence chief Aharon Haliva, former Southern Command chief Yaron Finkelman, and former Operations Directorate chief Oded Basyuk, according to the public broadcaster KAN.

The report said that Zamir also dismissed Gaza Division reserve commander Avi Rosenfeld, while the division’s intelligence officer was expelled from the army altogether.

09.11.2025 - 15:27 [ theCollector.com ]

The German Revolution of 1918-1919: The Birth of the Weimar Republic

(March 1, 2025)

On October 30, 1918, the naval garrison of Wilhelmshaven resisted the order to launch the operation against the British forces. Arrested by their officers, the mutineers were then brought to Kiel, where the local dock crews and workers joined their struggle. The rebellion soon spread through the coastal town, with soldiers and workers creating a council to demand the release of mutineers, freedom of speech, and the immediate stop of “all military measures” against the movement. Fearing the outbreak of a revolution, members of the Reichstag hastily traveled to Kiel, where they promised to accept the Soldiers’ and Workers’ Council demands.

By the time the government representatives arrived in Kiel, anti-war and pro-democracy protests had already reached countless coastal towns and ports.

08.11.2025 - 20:44 [ ZDF Heute ]

Türkei: Gericht erlässt Haftbefehl gegen Benjamin Netanjahu

Bereits im November 2024 hatte ein Gremium von Richtern des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs in Den Haag Haftbefehle gegen den israelischen Premierminister Benjamin Netanjahu und seinen früheren Verteidigungsminister Yoav Gallant wegen Kriegsverbrechen im Gazastreifen erlassen. Die USA und Israel erkennen den IStGH nicht an.

08.11.2025 - 20:42 [ France24.com ]

Turkey issues arrest warrant against Netanyahu for ‚genocide‘ in Gaza

The Istanbul prosecutor‘s office said in a statement that a total of 37 suspects were targeted by the arrest warrants, without providing a full list.

They include Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir.

Turkey has accused the officials of „genocide and crimes against humanity“ that Israel has „perpetrated systematically“ in Gaza.

30.10.2025 - 15:48 [ NNA-Leb.gov.lb ]

Aoun Orders Army to Confront Any Israeli Incursion, Calls Blida Attack “New Violation of Sovereignty”

The directive came during a meeting this morning at Baabda Palace with Army Commander General Rudolph Haykal, who briefed the President on the details of last night’s Israeli incursion into Blida, during which municipal employee Ibrahim Salamehwas killed while performing his duties.

President Aoun condemned the attack, describing it as “part of a continuous pattern of Israeli aggression” and noting that it occurred “shortly after the meeting of the Ceasefire Monitoring Committee (Mechanism), which must not limit itself to recording incidents, but act to end them by pressing Israel to respect the November ceasefire agreement and cease its violations of Lebanese sovereignty.”

28.10.2025 - 22:18 [ Archive.org ]

Operation Northwoods

(March 13, 1962)

c. Commence large scale United States military operations.
3. A „Remember the Maine“ incident could be arranged in several forms:
a. We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.
b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. We could arrange to cause such incident in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result of Cuban attack from the air or sea, or both. The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was taken under attack. The nearness to Havana or Santiago would add credibility especially to those people that might have heard the blast or have seen the fire. The US could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to „evacuate“ remaining members of the non-existent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.
4. We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington.

The terror campaign could be pointed at refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement, also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.

28.10.2025 - 22:10 [ New York Times ]

Declassified Papers Show Anti-Castro Ideas Proposed to Kennedy

(19. November 1997)

“We could blow up a US warship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba,“ the memorandum said.

“We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,“ it continued. “The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated).“

The records show that on March 13, 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsed these ideas as “suitable for planning purposes.“ No evidence exists that they were carried out.