Overview
- New reporting says a covert aircraft painted to look civilian and carrying weapons in an internal bay conducted the first September 2025 strike that killed 11 people off Venezuela.
- Witness accounts cited by the reports say the plane flew low enough for those on the boat to see it, a key factor in assessments that the ruse could qualify as unlawful perfidy.
- Pentagon officials say the jet broadcast a military transponder code and that all systems passed legal reviews, but specialists argue that does not resolve the legal concerns.
- Two survivors of the initial blast were killed in a follow‑up strike, the department has withheld full video of the incident, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth supports the decision though he did not issue the direct order.
- After the covert sortie, the military shifted to clearly identifiable platforms such as MQ‑9 Reaper drones as officials report roughly 35 strikes with more than 123 fatalities in a campaign that later expanded to operations against Venezuela, including Nicolás Maduro’s capture and U.S. detention.