Arya News - A speedboat fills the screen, its four engines carving a frothing wake through the water.
A speedboat fills the screen, its four engines carving a frothing wake through the water.
Then a flash and the vessel erupts in flames.
Donald Trump claimed 11 “narco terrorists” died in the US missile strike, when he posted the video online in September, triggering a wave of questions about the legal justification for killing drug smugglers.
Yet it is what comes next, after the 29 seconds of footage ends, that has his defence secretary fighting for his political life and fending off allegations that he and his troops are guilty of war crimes.
Some of the answers come in the 40 or so minutes of video that follow, shown to key members of Congress last week.
It shows two shirtless survivors clinging to the wreckage, according to people who have seen the full, unedited video.
Unable to right what is left of the hull, they reportedly raise their arms in a sign of surrender.
‘Double tap strike’
More than 2,000 miles away in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Adm Frank Bradley gives the order to strike again and the grainy footage explodes into light again.
Exactly why he ordered the “double tap strike” and what instructions he had been given by Pete Hegseth , the secretary of defence, are now under intense scrutiny.
The laws of armed conflict forbid attacks on enemies who have been shipwrecked and are no longer a threat.
The controversy cuts to the heart of Mr Trump’s muscular approach to defending the country and his defence secretary’s promise to push back against lawyers who get in the way of waging war.
Democrats want the full video released and Mr Hegseth to resign.
“The order was basically: Destroy the drugs, kill the 11 people on the boat,” said Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House armed services committee.
He has demanded further investigation, saying the video showed the survivors were “two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat, drifting in the water – until the missiles come and kill them.”
Mr Hegseth has survived a string of scandals so far. His punchy television style has delighted the commander-in-chief, but top White House aides have become increasingly irritated by the distraction.
Mr Hegseth, a former television personality, is fighting for his political life - Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
“This administration is run as a tight ship from the centre, but there is a problem with the Pentagon and the way it has sometimes blind-sided the White House,” said a source familiar with their thinking.
Mr Trump has put stopping drug smuggling at the heart of his policy in Latin America policy.
Officials say that the Pentagon has struck at least 22 more boats since that first strike, killing more than 80 alleged drug smugglers.
In the past, Coast Guard ships would stop and board vessels suspected of trafficking. Searching the vessel, its cargo and communications would allow investigators to move up the criminal chain towards the masterminds behind the trade.
The Trump administration has changed the terms of its war on drugs.
It designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal drugs organisation, as a “foreign terrorist organisation” in an armed conflict with the US, giving it – at least according to the White House – legal authority to use military force against its vessels.
When he posted the video of the first strike, Mr Trump alleged that it killed 11 “narco terrorists” who were transporting illegal narcotics to the US.
“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” he wrote.
He faced an immediate chorus of concern from opponents and lawyers who questioned the justification.
And that was before reports surfaced that a second strike on the disabled vessel had followed.
Two weeks ago, the Washington Post published a bombshell report, alleging that Mr Hegseth had given a verbal directive to leave no survivors.
“ The order was to kill everybody ,” said one of two sources familiar with the matter.
The Pentagon denied that version of events. “This entire narrative is completely ,” said Sean Parnell, its chief spokesman.
Mr Hegseth has survived a string of scandals so far, but last week an investigation into the ‘Signalgate’ affair concluded he shared highly sensitive attack plans on an unclassified app ahead of strikes on Yemen
Adm Bradley and Gen Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went before Congress on Thursday to answer questions about exactly who ordered what.
In a private hearing, they also aired the full video.
Officers are said to have told members of Congress that they believed the hull remained afloat because it still held bags of cocaine.
That might have allowed the survivors to float back to Venezuela or radio for help and make another attempt to deliver the payload.
Adm Bradley reportedly said he consulted lawyers before ordering the second strike.
This description is crucial. International humanitarian law makes it illegal to attack a combatant who is “hors de combat – “outside the fight” – whether incapacitated or wounded or floating helplessly beside the wreckage of a boat.
“Deliberately targeting such a person is not a tactical decision,” Mark Hertling, former commander of US Army Europe, wrote in the Bulwark. “It is a potential war crime.”
Republicans and Democrats drew different conclusions from the footage.
Senator Tom Cotton, the Republican chair of the senate intelligence committee, told reporters that the video showed survivors “trying to flip a boat – loaded with drugs – bound for the United States back over so they could stay in the fight”.
In the meantime, Democrats are calling for the full thing to be released.
Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House armed services committee, told ABC News on Sunday: “It’s no different than any of the dozen-plus videos they’ve already released.
“It seems pretty clear they don’t want to release this video because they don’t want people to see it, because it’s very, very difficult to justify.”
Drug boat strikes authorised by Pete Hesgeth shown on CBS News
Mr Trump has said it would be “no problem” to publish the footage, and has publicly backed his defence secretary.
After the chaos of his first term, he has put stability at the heart of his second term and is reluctant to fire cabinet secretaries, particularly under pressure from the media.
However, Mr Hegseth has been testing the patience of some of his top officials from day one, when reports of heavy drinking surfaced.
Last week, an investigation into the “Signalgate” affair concluded that the defence secretary shared highly sensitive attack plans on an unclassified app ahead of strikes on Yemen.
For his part, Mr Hegseth was unapologetic about the strikes on drug boats during the annual Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday evening.
“If you bring drugs to this country in a boat, we will find you and we will sink you,” he said.
He was vague when asked whether the video should be published. “We’re reviewing the process, and we’ll see,” he said.
But he was emphatic in denying accusations of war crimes.
“You don’t walk in and say, ‘Kill them all’,” he said. “It’s just patently ridiculous.”
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