Two survivors clung to the wreckage of a vessel attacked by the U.S. military for roughly 45 minutes before a second strike killed them on September 2. After about three quarters of an hour, Adm. Frank Bradley, then head of Joint Special Operations Command, ordered a follow-up strike — first reported by The Intercept in September — that killed the shipwrecked men, according to three government sources and a senior lawmaker.

Two more missiles followed that finally sank the foundering vessel. Bradley, now the chief of Special Operations Command, claimed that he conducted multiple strikes because the shipwrecked men and the fragment of the boat still posed a threat, according to the sources.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth distanced himself from the follow-up strike during a Cabinet meetin

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