Bernd Debusmann Jrat the White House
Donald Trump/Truth Social
The 2 September strike in the Caribbean was the first of a wave of attacks against suspected drug traffickers conducted by the Trump administration.
A US strike against an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has become the focal point of controversy, with shifting narratives and mounting questions on Capitol Hill.
An initial strike on the boat reportedly left two survivors clinging to the burning vessel before a second strike killed both – prompting concerns that US forces violated laws governing armed conflict.
It was the first in a series of ongoing attacks that have left more than 80 people dead in both the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
While US officials have insisted the strike was lawful, a full picture is still emerging of what happened and who was ultimately responsible for the decision.
Trump’s 2 September announcement
The US public first learned of the strike on 2 September, when Trump surprised reporters in the Oval Office by announcing that just moments beforehand, the US had “shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat” that was travelling from Venezuela.
Later the same day, the president posted on Truth Social that the strike had killed 11 members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang designated as a foreign terrorist organisation earlier this year.
Trump’s post also included a video of the attack, showing the boat being struck by an unidentified munition and catching on fire.
A US official later confirmed to CBS, the BBC’s US partner, that a total of four missiles were used in the operation.
Nearly no further information about the target was provided at the time.
While Trump said the vessel was heading to the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the same day that it was “probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean”.
The following day, Rubio changed course, saying that it was “headed towards, eventually, the United States”.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News at the time that he watched the strike “live”.
“We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing,” he said.
In subsequent days, US officials argued the strike was legally justified.
Media report sparks controversy
Similar strikes continued regularly in both the Caribbean and Pacific in the weeks and months that followed, with the 2 September one being largely overshadowed by the escalating military campaign against drug traffickers.
On 28 November, however, the Washington Post reported that two people had survived the
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