Overview
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said U.S. forces, acting on President Trump’s orders, struck a vessel in international waters operated by a designated terrorist organization, killing three men; no U.S. forces were harmed and the post included limited, unverified video.
- Saturday’s action is the roughly 15th publicly acknowledged strike since early September, with about 64–65 people reported killed across operations in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
- The U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk, urged the U.S. to halt the killings, saying the reported circumstances provide no justification under international law for using lethal force.
- Lawmakers from both parties have demanded the administration’s legal opinions and a list of targetable groups, with several leaving recent classified briefings frustrated by a lack of detail.
- U.S. deployments supporting the effort include Navy ships, F-35s in Puerto Rico, and the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group moving into the region, as tensions with Venezuela draw heightened attention even as Trump denies planning strikes inside the country.