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Video of U.S. Military Killing Boat Strike Survivors Is Horrifying, Lawmakers Say

by Daniel Perez - News Editor December 5, 2025

December 5, 2025 0 comments

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Lawmakers who viewed a video of a U.S. attack on individuals clinging to the wreckage of a suspected drug boat on September 2 described the footage as deeply disturbing.

A limited number of members from the House Permanent select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate and House Armed Services committees, along with staff directors, were shown the recording during closed-door briefings Thursday with Adm. Frank M. Bradley, head of Special Operations Command, and Gen. Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“What I saw in that room is one of the most troubling scenes I’ve ever seen in my time in public service,” said Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel who were killed by the United States.”

Previously, lawmakers had only seen an edited clip posted to President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account on September 2, showcasing the initial strike and the speedboat explosion. This clip omitted the second strike on the wreckage and survivors – details first reported by the Intercept.

Himes stated the unedited video clearly depicts the U.S. striking helpless people.

“Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors.”

“Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors – bad guys, bad guys, but attacking shipwrecked sailors,” he told The Intercept.

Himes said Bradley confirmed there was no “kill them all” order. However, The Washington Post recently reported that Hegseth personally ordered the follow-up attack, issuing a spoken order “to kill everybody.”

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, also expressed dismay after viewing the footage. “I am deeply disturbed by what I saw this morning. The Department of Defense has no choice but to release the complete, unedited footage of Sept

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The military has carried out 21 known attacks, destroying 22 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean as September, killing at least 83 civilians. The most recent strike on a vessel was November 15.

Since the attacks began, experts in the laws of war and members of Congress, from both partieshave described the strikes as illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians — even suspected criminals — who do not pose an imminent threat of violence. Throughout the long-running U.S. war on drugslaw enforcement agencies have arrested suspected drug smugglers rather than relying on summary executions. The double-tap strike first reported by The Intercept has only made worse a pattern of attacks that experts and lawmakers say are already tantamount to murder.

Sarah Harrison, who previously advised Pentagon policymakers on issues related to human rights and the law of war, cautioned against undue focus on the double-tap strike. “I can understand why the public and lawmakers are shocked by the second strike on Sept 2. The imagery of humans clinging to wreckage, likely severely injured, and then afterward executed, is no doubt jarring. but we have to keep emphasizing to those who are conducting the strikes within DoD that there is no war, thus no law of war to protect them,” said Harrison, a former associate general counsel at the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel, International Affairs. “All of the strikes, not just the Sept 2 incident, are extrajudicial killings of people alleged to have committed crimes. Americans should have been and should continue to be alarmed by that.”

The Pentagon continues to argue it is at war with undisclosed drug cartels and gangs. “I can tell you that every single person who we have hit thus far who is in a drug boat carrying narcotics to the United States is a narcoterrorist. Our intelligence has confirmed that, and we stand by it,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said Tuesday.

“There is no such thing as a narco-terrorist,” Himes said on thursday. “Apparently, we have enough evidence to kill these people, but we don’t have enough evidence to try them in a court of law. People ought to sort of let that sink in and think about the implications of that.”

“Apparently,we have enough evidence to kill these people,but we don’t have enough evidence to try them in a court of law.”

Sources briefed about the video footage say it contradicts a narrative that emerged in recent days that intercepted communications between the survivors and their supposed colleagues demonstrated those wounded individuals clinging to the wreckage were combatants, rather than shipwrecked and defenseless people whom it would be a war crime to target.

the Pentagon’s Law of War Manual is clear on attacking defenseless people. “Persons who have been rendered unconscious or otherwise incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck, such that they are no longer capable of fighting, are hors de combat,” reads the guide using the French term for those out of combat. “Persons who have been incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck are in a helpless state, and it would be dishonorable and inhumane to make them the object of attack.”

“The notion that radioing for help forfeits your shipwreck status is absurd — much less than it enables them to target you,” said Finucane.“I don’t believe there’s an armed conflict, so none of these people are lawful targets. They weren’t combatants,they’re not participating in hostilities.So the whole construct is ridiculous. But even if you accept that this is some sort of law of war situation, radioing for help does not deprive you of shipwreck status or render you a target under the law of war.”

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