Overview
- The New York Times, citing officials and people briefed on the operation, reported that a disguised aircraft with weapons hidden inside its fuselage was used in the September attack off Venezuela.
- Witness accounts described to the paper say the plane flew low enough to be clearly seen from the targeted boat, a factor legal scholars say is central to the perfidy assessment.
- Official figures state that eleven people were killed in the initial strike and that two survivors were then killed in a subsequent attack on the same boat.
- The Pentagon has declined to release the full video of the incident, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faces mounting scrutiny, and the White House has not commented on the specific allegations.
- U.S. officials have framed the campaign as an armed conflict with drug cartels, a rationale contested by legal experts, as the broader operation has included about 35 strikes with more than 123 deaths and preceded the January capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro.