{"id":328915,"date":"2025-12-03T23:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T23:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/328915\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T23:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T23:31:07","slug":"pentagon-knew-boat-attack-left-survivors-ap-sources-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/328915\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon knew boat attack left survivors, AP sources say"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Pentagon knew there were survivors after a September attack<\/a> on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea and the U.S. military still carried out a follow-up strike, according to two people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n

The rationale for the second strike was that it was needed to sink the vessel, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren\u2019t authorized to discuss it publicly. The Trump administration says all 11 people aboard were killed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What remains unclear was who ordered the strikes and whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> was involved, one of the people said. The details are becoming crucial as lawmakers in Congress have launched investigations and are seeking to determine whether the U.S. acted lawfully during its military operations.<\/p>\n

From AP\u2019s Standards and Stylebook teams:
The AP is using anonymous sourcing to provide information for this story. Click here<\/a> to hear Washington Bureau Chief Anna Johnson explain AP\u2019s policy on the use of anonymous sources.<\/p>\n

The questions are expected to emerge Thursday during a classified congressional briefing with the commander that the Trump administration says ordered the second strike, Adm. Frank \u201cMitch\u201d Bradley.<\/p>\n

The additional information comes as Hegseth is under growing scrutiny<\/a> over the department\u2019s strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific, and in particular the early September follow-on strike that reportedly killed survivors. Some legal experts<\/a> and lawmakers say that strike would have violated peacetime laws and those governing armed conflict. <\/p>\n

Hegseth has defended the second strike as emerging in the \u201cfog of war,\u201d<\/a> saying during a Cabinet meeting this week at the White House that he didn\u2019t see any survivors but also \u201cdidn\u2019t stick around\u201d for the rest of the mission.<\/p>\n

The defense secretary has also said that Bradley, as the admiral in charge, \u201cmade the right call\u201d in ordering the second hit, which he \u201chad complete authority to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has said the U.S. is in \u201carmed conflict\u201d<\/a> with drug cartels, even though Congress has not approved any authorization for the use of military force in the region. <\/p>\n

The information about the follow-on strike was not presented to lawmakers during a classified briefing in September, in the days after the incident. It was disclosed later, one of the people said, and the explanation provided by the department has been broadly unsatisfactory to various members of the national security committees in Congress.<\/p>\n

In a rare flex of bipartisan oversight, the Armed Services committees in both the House and Senate swiftly announced investigations into the strikes as lawmakers of both parties raise questions.<\/p>\n

Bradley is scheduled to appear Thursday in a classified briefing with the panels\u2019 two Republican chairmen and two ranking Democratic members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Pentagon knew there were survivors after a September attack on an alleged drug boat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,23662,60187,12,793,3138,1576,3,1572,111,12955,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,800,965],"class_list":["post-328915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-caribbean","tag-caribbean-sea","tag-donald-trump","tag-general-news","tag-government-and-politics","tag-military-and-defense","tag-news","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-politics","tag-u-s-department-of-defense","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}