Archiv: US Navy Seals


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.

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.
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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.

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.

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.”

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 - 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.”

02.12.2025 - 19:16 [ Time Magazine ]

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.

02.12.2025 - 19:09 [ Time Magazine ]

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.

30.11.2025 - 08:13 [ theHill.com ]

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.

29.11.2025 - 17:46 [ theHill.com ]

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.

29.11.2025 - 17:38 [ Washington Post ]

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.

15.09.2024 - 16:32 [ Tagesschau.de ]

Venezuela: Ausländer wegen „Destabilisierung“ festgenommen

Die venezolanischen Behörden haben sechs Ausländer aus den USA und Europa wegen angeblicher Pläne zur „Destabilisierung“ des Landes festgenommen und der US-Regierung eine Beteiligung an Umsturzplänen vorgeworfen. Wie die Regierung in Caracas mitteilte, wurden drei US-Bürger, zwei Spanier und ein Tscheche festgenommen.

Die Verdächtigen hätten „Gewaltakte“ gegen Präsident Nicolás Maduro und dessen Regierung geplant, sagte Innenminister Diosdado Cabello bei einer Pressekonferenz

15.09.2024 - 16:08 [ UltimasNoticias.com.ve ]

Cabello on terrorist plan: María Corina Machado is behind the entire operation

“They went with this tropicalized character,” Cabello said in relation to the US intentions to use a person with the same Latin American phenotype, seeking not to repeat the gringo mercenaries of Caucasian morphology.

“It is important to know that this person worked in special Navy SEAL units focused on Latin America, because they are made up of people who speak Spanish perfectly, like this person,” he explained.

The Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace added that two citizens of Spanish origin, a Czech citizen and an American expert in computer hacking are also in custody.

15.09.2024 - 15:30 [ UltimasNoticias.com.ve ]

Terrorist plot led by active US military officer revealed

„We know that the United States Government is linked to this operation because during the investigation we have found out how, in Orlando, Florida, in one of these parcel services, in the warehouses, the FBI was there and we have that video (…) they allowed that operation to continue,“ he said.

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“A few days ago we captured some people who were talking about throwing grenades and explosives at the Argentine Embassy, ​​where some terrorists and criminals from the opposition are taking refuge. This perfectly reversed the fact that if the Argentine Embassy, ​​where some gentlemen and ladies from the opposition are, were attacked, it was immediately obvious that the person who would be blamed would be the Government of Venezuela,” he warned.

15.09.2024 - 14:42 [ CNN ]

Venezuela says US Navy SEAL among foreigners arrested over alleged CIA ‘operation’ to assassinate Maduro

“The CIA is at the forefront of this operation,” Cabello said in the news conference, claiming that Spain’s National Intelligence Center was also involved. “That does not surprise us at all,” he said.

He alleged that the operation had “very clear objectives of assassinating President Nicolás Maduro” and other high-ranking Venezuelan politicians including himself and the vice president.

The State Department denied the claims. A spokesperson confirmed on Saturday a member of the US military had been arrested in Venezuela, and that the department was “aware of unconfirmed reports of two additional US citizens detained” in the country.

22.01.2024 - 06:11 [ Associated Press ]

Military ends rescue search for Navy SEALs lost in maritime raid on ship with Iranian weapons

According to officials, the Jan. 11 raid targeted an unflagged ship carrying illicit Iranian-made weapons to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Officials have said that as the team was boarding the ship, one of the SEALs went under in the heavy seas, and a teammate went in to try and save him.

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The U.S. Navy ultimately sunk the ship carrying the weapons after deeming it unsafe, Central Command said. The ship’s 14 crew were detained.

04.08.2023 - 07:04 [ ABC News ]

2 US Navy sailors arrested for allegedly spying for China

„The charges demonstrate [China‘s] determination to obtain information that is critical to our national defense by any means so it can be used to their advantage,“ Olsen continued. „The alleged conduct also represents a violation of the solemn obligation of members of our military to defend our country to safeguard our secrets and to protect their fellow service members.“

It was not immediately clear if either Wei or Zhao had retained attorneys who could comment on their behalf. They have not yet entered pleas.

Both Wei and Zhao had their initial court appearances later on Thursday:

30.08.2022 - 16:37 [ New York Times ]

Death in Navy SEAL Training Exposes a Culture of Brutality, Cheating and Drugs

An often heard unofficial adage in the SEALs holds that, “if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”

During BUD/S, he said, the “enemy” to be outfoxed is the course itself.

“No one can do everything the instructors ask, so you have to learn how to cheat to get through,” he said. “Everyone knows it happens. The point is to learn how to not get caught.”

“Basically, you are selecting for guys who are willing to cheat,” he added.

05.01.2022 - 10:59 [ Washington Post ]

Judge grants relief to Navy SEALs who refused coronavirus vaccine, sued Biden administration

A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction on Monday blocking the Defense Department from taking action against a group of 35 Navy sailors who had refused to get a coronavirus vaccine, raising questions on how it might shape the Pentagon’s requirement that all U.S. troops get vaccinated.

04.05.2021 - 20:23 [ Time Magazine ]

President Biden Made the Right Choice to Withdraw from Afghanistan

We all know theoretically that “sunk costs are sunk,” but when those costs are friends and teammates, it isn’t easy to walk away. There’s no way ever to quantify the loss of over 2,200 American servicemen and women, 3,800 American contractors, and 100,000 Afghans over two decades. The stoic philosophers like Epictetus and Aurelius taught to detach without being vacuous but that isn’t always the easiest advice to follow. Like all SEALs and service members of my era, I’ve buried far too many friends. We best honor them by making a stoic and intelligent choice today, not by sacrificing and investing more in a mission no longer central to our national security.

28.04.2021 - 23:37 [ Dave deCamp / Antiwar.com ]

Navy SEALs Shifting Focus Away From Counterterrorism to Face Russia and China

The 2018 National Defense Strategy outlined the US military‘s shift away from counterterrorism towards so-called ‚great power competition‘

07.03.2020 - 06:32 [ Stars and Stripes ]

Navy to redesignate USNS Hershel ‚Woody‘ Williams so SEALs can attack from it

The slight change in its name means the ship can legally carry out offensive military operations such as allowing Marines or Navy SEALs to launch attacks directly from the ship. A USNS ship under the command of a civilian can engage in combat only if it is defending itself.