US lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration for answers about military strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats, after a report alleged that a follow-up strike was ordered to kill survivors of an initial attack.
Republican-led committees overseeing the Pentagon have vowed to conduct 'vigorous oversight' into the USA boat strikes in the Caribbean, following the report.
On Friday, The Washington Post reported that a US strike on a boat on 2 September left two survivors, but that a second attack was carried out to comply with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's orders to 'kill everybody' on board - raising fresh legality questions.
Hegseth decried the report as 'fake news'.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said he believed his defence secretary '100%'.
In recent weeks, the US has expanded its military presence in the Caribbean and carried out a series of lethal strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in international waters off Venezuela and Colombia, as part of what it calls an anti-narcotics operation.
More than 80 people have been killed since early September.
The Trump administration says it is acting in self-defence by destroying boats carrying illicit drugs to the US.
In its report on Friday, which has not been verified by the BBC, The Washington Post wrote that Secretary Hegseth 'gave a spoken directive' to 'kill everybody' on board one such vessel, and a Special Operations commander overseeing the operation 'ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth's instructions'.
The Trump administration has sought to justify its operations in the Caribbean by saying it is in a non-international armed conflict with the alleged drug traffickers.
The rules of engagement in such armed conflicts, as outlined in the Geneva Conventions, forbid the targeting of wounded participants, stating that those participants should be apprehended and cared for.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers appearing on US talk shows on Sunday supported congressional reviews of the boat strikes, emphasizing that attacking survivors of an initial missile strike presents major legal concerns.
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine termed it a potential war crime if the report was true, while Republican Mike Turner acknowledged that the occurrence would be very serious and illegal.
The Senate Armed Services Committee announced its intentions for 'vigorous oversight' into the strikes.
The House Armed Services Committee followed suit, asserting it is taking bipartisan action to gather full accounting of the operation in question.
In a post on X, Hegseth pushed back against accusations, calling them 'fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory'. He stated that all traffickers killed are linked with a Designated Terrorist Organization.
Venezuela's National Assembly condemned the strikes, promising a thorough investigation into the claims surrounding the second strike that allegedly killed survivors. The government of Venezuela accuses the US of seeking to topple its regime.
US military legal advisers have indicated that while the US is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, military action should generally be non-lethal, emphasizing adherence to international legal standards when engaging vessels in international waters.
