The US Senate Armed Services Committee has vowed to scrutinize an alleged incident in which US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered military units to target a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean. According to a report by the Washington Post, Hegseth gave the order to “kill everybody” on the boat, which was destroyed on September 2, resulting in the deaths of all 11 people on board.

The incident is part of the US’s Operation Southern Spear, a military operation aimed at combating “narcoterrorists” in the region. The US has amassed over a dozen warships and 15,000 military personnel off the coast of Venezuela as part of the operation. US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out military action in the South American country, despite Caracas’s consistent denial of any involvement with drug traffickers.

Hegseth responded to the allegations on social media, stating that the reporting was “fabricated” and “inflammatory.” However, he did not deny the allegations outright, saying that the military strikes were “specifically intended to be lethal, kinetic strikes” and that every trafficker targeted was affiliated with a designated terrorist organization.

The Washington Post reported that since the incident, the US military has hit at least 22 more vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing another 71 alleged drug smugglers. The Senate Armed Services Committee has announced that it will take bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has characterized Trump’s recent statement proclaiming the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed as a “colonialist threat.” The US President made the statement on his social media platform, amid escalating tensions between the two countries.

The incident has sparked concern among lawmakers, with the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican Senator Roger Wicker, issuing a statement saying that the committee takes the reports “seriously” and will work to gather more information. The committee’s scrutiny of the incident is likely to shed more light on the US’s military operations in the region and the circumstances surrounding the alleged incident.