Pentagon chief slams media over report of deadly Caribbean strike
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has lambasted the Washington Post after it alleged that he had ordered military units to “kill everybody” on a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean in early September.
High-ranking members of the US Senate Armed Services Committee have said it will scrutinize the alleged incident.
Over the past few months, the US has amassed over a dozen warships and some 15,000 military personnel off the coast of Venezuela as part of its Operation Southern Spear, which is ostensibly directed against “narcoterrorists.”
US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out military action in the South American country. Caracas has consistently denied any involvement with drug traffickers.
In a post on X on Saturday, Hegseth wrote that “as usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.”
He did not deny the allegations outright, saying that “these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be lethal, kinetic strikes.”
“Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” the secretary added.
In a report earlier on Saturday, the Washington Post, citing anonymous sources “with direct knowledge of the operation,” claimed that Hegseth gave the order to “kill everybody” on a boat that was destroyed on September 2. The attack allegedly claimed the lives of all eleven people aboard.
According to the newspaper, since then, the US military has hit at least 22 more vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing another 71 alleged drug smugglers.
Late on Friday, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican Senator Roger Wicker issued a statement along with Democratic members of the committee, saying that they “take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region and are taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question.”
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, US President Trump proclaimed the “airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed in its entirety.”
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has characterized Trump’s remark as a “colonialist threat.”
