US Navy commander ordered second Venezuela boat strike, White House says

 A top US Navy commander ordered a second round of military strikes on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat, the White House has confirmed.

"Admiral (Frank) Bradley worked well within his authority and the law" in ordering the additional strikes, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday.

Leavitt said Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth authorised the 2 September strikes but did not give the verbal order to "kill everybody" on board, an allegation first reported by the Washington Post.

Hegseth also denied he gave the order, which has drawn bipartisan condemnation from US lawmakers who have vowed to investigate the incident for possible war crimes.

"President (Donald) Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war," Leavitt said during the Monday press briefing.

"The president has a right to take them out if they are threatening the United States of America," she said.

Media reports that Hegseth had given the directive to kill all those on board the vessel have renewed concerns about the legality of US military strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

In recent weeks, the US has expanded its military presence in the Caribbean and carried out a series of lethal strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in international waters off Venezuela and Colombia, as part of what it calls an anti-narcotics operation.

More than 80 people have been killed since early September.

The Trump administration says it is acting in self-defence by destroying boats carrying illicit drugs to the US.

"The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people," Hegseth wrote on X.

Hegseth spoke with members of Congress over the weekend who had expressed concerns, Leavitt said.

Lawmakers' concerns over the strikes have escalated following the Washington Post's report on Friday.

Senator Roger Wicker and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Jack Reed, said in a statement at the time that the Senate Armed Services Committee "has directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances".

The House Armed Services Committee followed suit, saying it was "taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question".

Hegseth has pushed back against accusations on Friday, calling them "fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory".

Presidnt Trump said on Sunday he believed his defence secretary "100%".

The Trump administration has said its operations in the Caribbean is a non-international armed conflict with the alleged drug traffickers.

The rules of engagement in such armed conflicts - as set out in the Geneva Conventions - forbid the targeting of wounded participants, saying that those participants should instead be apprehended and cared for.

Under former-President Barack Obama, the US military came under scrutiny for firing multiple rounds from drones, in a practice known as the "double tap", that sometimes resulted in unintended casualties.

On Sunday, Venezuela's National Assembly condemned the boat strikes and vowed to carry out a "rigorous and thorough investigation" into the accusations of a second attack that allegedly killed two survivors.

The Venezuelan government has accused the US of stoking tensions in the region, with the aim of toppling the government.