WASHINGTON — After a pause of nearly three weeks, the U.S. Southern Command resumed its campaign against suspected drug trafficking operations with another strike on a small boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean, announced on Thursday.

This latest operation marks the 22nd strike executed by the U.S. military targeting vessels in both the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, actions that the Trump administration has linked to drug trafficking activities.

Thursday’s strike resulted in four casualties, as reported on social media, raising the campaign’s total death toll to at least 87 individuals.

Accompanying this announcement was a video showing a small boat navigating across the water, only to be engulfed in a sudden, massive explosion. The footage then expands to reveal the boat ablaze, with smoke rising into the sky.

Coincidentally, on the same day as the strike, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley attended a series of closed-door, classified briefings at the U.S. Capitol. These sessions were part of a congressional investigation into the military’s initial strike on September 2. The inquiry follows reports suggesting that Bradley ordered a subsequent attack that targeted survivors, purportedly to meet the demands of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Bradley told lawmakers there was no “kill them all” order from Hegseth, but a stark video of the entire series of attacks left some lawmakers with serious questions.

Legal experts have said killing survivors of a strike at sea could be a violation of the laws of military warfare.

Bradley spoke to lawmakers alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, in a classified session. His testimony provided fresh information at a crucial moment as Hegseth’s leadership comes under scrutiny, but it did little to resolve growing questions about the legal basis for President Donald Trump’s extraordinary campaign to use war powers against suspected drug smugglers.

Lawmakers offered differing accounts of what they saw on the video.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said he saw the survivors “trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for United States back over so they could stay in the fight.”

Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said, “What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”

“You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel,” he said, adding they “were killed by the United States.”

Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said the survivors were “basically two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat, drifting in the water – until the missiles come and kill them.”