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Published : 05 Dec 2025, 10:27 AM
Members of Congress have said they will investigate whether the US military broke the law by allegedly killing two survivors of a strike on a suspected drug trafficking vessel in the Caribbean. The White House has defended the strike as lawful.
Below is a look at the potential legal violations in the attack, which human rights groups said would amount to murder or a war crime.
WHAT HAPPENED?
The White House said US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorised strikes on Sept2 that destroyed a vessel in the Caribbean with 11 people on board. The attack was the first in a campaign of strikes against suspected drug traffickers off the coast of Venezuela.
Hegseth, who has vowed to restore a "warrior culture" to the military, has faced scrutiny over the attack after the Washington Post reported the commander overseeing the operation ordered a second strike to kill two survivors clinging to the boat's wreckage.
The White House has denied the Post report, and facts surrounding the attack are unclear.
Hegseth said he watched the first strike remotely in real time but did not see survivors and went to another meeting. Hours later, he said, he learned that Admiral Frank Bradley had ordered the second strike.
Hegseth and the White House defended the follow-on strike, although Trump said he would not have wanted a second strike and that he would look into the event.
There have been around 20 strikes on suspected drug shipments since Sept 2 that have killed more than 80 people. The strikes come as the Trump administration is intensifying pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who the administration calls an illegitimate leader.
WAS THE STRIKE LEGAL?
Killing suspected drug traffickers who pose no threat of causing imminent serious injury to others would be murder under US and international law. However, the United States has framed the attacks as a war with drug cartels, calling them armed groups.
The administration said its attacks comply with international rules known as the law of war or the law of armed conflict. Those international laws require the United States to distinguish between civilians and combatants, avoid attacks that cause disproportionate civilian harm, limit force to legitimate military objectives and avoid unnecessary suffering.
The laws allow for the use of deadly force in self-defence and the Trump administration has said the drug cartels pose an immediate threat to the United States. The administration has described illegal narcotics as a weapon and said the gangs have caused thousands of American deaths.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have condemned the attacks and several legal experts said the drug cartels do not fit the accepted international definition of an armed group, which is understood as an organization like al Qaeda that carries out sustained attacks for political or ideological reasons.
The critics say that designating the cartels as terrorists does not legitimize the attacks. US attacks on al Qaeda were considered legal not because they were designated terrorists, but because Congress authorized strikes on groups tied to the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Congress, which has the power to declare war, has not authorized attacks on the drug cartels.
Even if the campaign against the drug-trafficking boats had been authorized by Congress, some former military lawyers said the strike against survivors would be a war crime if the military knowingly killed survivors.
The Defense Department's Law of War Manual forbids attacks on combatants who are incapacitated, unconscious or shipwrecked, provided they abstain from hostilities or are not attempting to escape. The manual cites firing upon shipwreck survivors as an example of a "clearly illegal" order that should be refused.
Congressional lawmakers who were briefed by Bradley on Thursday reviewed a video of the attack and reacted along party lines. Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said two survivors in "clear distress" could be seen in the video, though Republican lawmakers at the briefing defended the strike as legal.
CAN THE STRIKES BE LEGALLY CHALLENGED?
US lawmakers can subpoena officials, put limits on the president's use of military force and cut off funding.
While Republicans, who control Congress, have been reluctant to challenge the president, some members of the party have expressed increasing concern about the strikes.
Challenges would face high hurdles in US courts, as judges often defer to the president on matters of security and it is unclear if anyone would have standing to sue.
The only survivors of the four-month campaign have been returned to their home countries. If they had been detained they might have been able to challenge their detention and the legality of the strikes, according to legal experts.
US allies including France have raised concerns that the strikes were illegal and the family of one person allegedly killed in the strikes filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
However, international tribunals have little influence over the Trump administration and the United States is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court, which hears cases of large-scale war crimes, and it has a veto at the United Nations Security Council.
COULD MILITARY LEADERS BE PROSECUTED?
The US military and Justice Department have the power to investigate and ultimately pursue charges against anyone who broke the law.
It will be important for investigators to understand who ordered the second strike, the intent of the order, whether the boat was navigable after the first strike and when survivors were discovered.
If investigations determine that unlawful killings took place, prosecutors could pursue murder charges or charges for war crimes. Both Hegseth and Bradley could have legal liability, although there is little precedent for pursuing combat-related charges against a top officer.
As a civilian, Hegseth would be investigated and prosecuted by the Justice Department and tried in a federal court.
Bradley and others involved in the attack could be prosecuted in a court-martial, which has been used in convictions for war crimes and in prosecutions of high-ranking officers for personal misconduct.
A defendant cannot claim they were following orders if those orders were clearly illegal. Defendants could argue that statements by Hegseth unfairly tainted the prosecution against them.
Trump could pardon anyone who was convicted of a federal or war crime.
