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.
A still frame from a video posted on Truth Social by President Donald Trump, showing a missile strike on a boat allegedly transporting illegal narcotics on Sept. 2, 2025. Information along the sides of the image has been obscured by the U.S. Department of Defense. (Department of Defense)
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The longer the U.S. surveillance aircraft followed the boat, the more confident intelligence analysts watching from command centers became that the 11 people on board were ferrying drugs.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said.
What readers are saying
The comments overwhelmingly condemn the U.S. military’s actions in the Caribbean boat strike, labeling them as illegal and war crimes. Many commenters argue that the orders to leave no survivors are unlawful, equating them to murder, and call for accountability for those… Show more
This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments.
