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Question for Hegseth: Did US Military Rely on AI Targeting for Bombing of Iranian School?
The US military has publicly confirmed using "a variety of advanced AI tools" in the Iran assault to "help us sift through vast amounts of data in seconds."
Mar 12, 2026
A group of more than 120 Democrats in the US House on Thursday pressed Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth on whether American forces used artificial intelligence in the deadly bombing of an elementary school in southern Iran.
"What is the role of artificial intelligence, if any, in selecting targets, assessing intelligence, and making legal determinations during Operation Epic Fury?" the Democratic lawmakers, led by Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), asked in a letter to Hegseth. "If AI is used, is it subject to human review and at what point? Was artificial intelligence, including the use of the Maven Smart System, used to identify the Shajareh Tayyebeh school as a target? If so, did a human verify the accuracy of this target?"
The letter to Hegseth was sent a day after The New York Times reported that Pentagon investigators preliminarily concluded that US forces were responsible for the bombing of the girls' school in Minab, Iran—a strike that killed at least 175 people, mostly children.
The Democratic lawmakers cited the Times' reporting in their letter, writing that they "are particularly disturbed" by the school bombing, which President Donald Trump initially—and without a shred of evidence—tried to pin on Iran before later saying he didn't "know enough about it" to assign blame.
According to the Times, the school strike "was the result of a targeting mistake by the US military, which was conducting strikes on an adjacent Iranian base of which the school building was formerly a part."
The US military has confirmed using AI tools in its illegal war on Iran, which is being carried out in partnership with Israeli forces that have used artificial intelligence extensively in their genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip.
“Our war fighters are leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools," Brad Cooper, the head of the US Central Command, said in a video message released Wednesday. "These systems help us sift through vast amounts of data in seconds so our leaders can cut through the noise and make smarter decisions faster than the enemy can react."
NBC News reported earlier this week that the US military is "using AI systems from data analytics company Palantir to identify potential targets in the ongoing attacks."
"The use of Palantir’s software, which relies in part on Anthropic’s Claude AI systems, comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth aims to put artificial intelligence at the heart of America’s combat operations," the outlet noted.
During his tenure as head of the Pentagon, Hegseth has worked to dismantle initiatives aimed at reducing civilian killings, scoffed at "stupid rules of engagement," and touted "maximum lethality" as a top priority for the US military.
In their letter on Thursday, the House Democrats wrote that mass civilian deaths in the US-Israeli war on Iran are "alarming yet unsurprising" given Hegseth and Trump's open contempt for legal constraints on American forces.
"The US and Israel have reportedly struck or impacted numerous civilian sites—including schools, hospitals, gymnasiums, public gathering spaces, and a UNESCO heritage site," the lawmakers wrote. "Civilians and civilian infrastructure may under no circumstances be the object of attack and must at all times be respected and protected by all parties."
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Hegseth Says 6 More Men Killed in Latest Boat Bombings
At least 76 people have been killed in 19 US attacks on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since early September.
Nov 10, 2025
Six people were killed Sunday in US military strikes on what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed were boats smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, bringing the total death toll from all such reported attacks to at least 76 since early September.
"Yesterday, at the direction of President [Donald] Trump, two lethal kinetic strikes were conducted on two vessels operated by designated terrorist organizations. These vessels were known by our intelligence to be associated with illicit narcotics smuggling, were carrying narcotics, and were transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route in the eastern Pacific," Hegseth said Monday on social media without providing evidence to support his claim.
"Both strikes were conducted in international waters and three male narco-terrorists were aboard each vessel. All six were killed," he added. "No US forces were harmed. Under President Trump, we are protecting the homeland and killing these cartel terrorists who wish to harm our country and its people."
Sunday's attacks raised the death toll in the Trump administration's nine-week campaign to at least 76 people in 19 attacks in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. The US strikes have come amid Trump's deployment of warships and thousands of troops off the coast of Venezuela and follow the president's approval of covert CIA action and threats to attack inside the oil-rich country.
Last week, Republicans in the US Senate rejected a bipartisan war powers resolution aimed at stopping the Trump administration from continuing its bombing of alleged drug boats or attacking Venezuela without lawmakers’ assent, as required by law.
Trump administration officials have admitted that they aren't attempting to identify people aboard boats before or after bombing them. Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) recently told CNN that Pentagon officials briefed her “that they do not need to positively identify individuals on the vessel to do the strikes."
Jacobs also said that the administration is not making any effort to imprison survivors of the strikes or prosecute them, “because they could not satisfy the evidentiary burden.”
In the past, drug trafficking in the Caribbean and Pacific has been treated by the US government as a law enforcement issue, with the Coast Guard and other agencies sometimes intercepting boats and arresting those on board if evidence was found, granting them a day in court.
Leaders in Venezuela, Colombia, and other nations; United Nations officials; human rights groups; and Democratic US lawmakers are among those who have condemned the boat bombings as extrajudicial assassination, murder, and war crimes.
While some residents of the Venezuelan villages from which the targeted boats departed have said that many of the men killed in the strikes were running drugs, regional officials and relatives of victims have asserted that numerous men slain in the attacks were not narco-traffickers.
According to an MSNBC investigation published last week, the identities of up to 50 strike victims remain publicly unknown. In a rare display of congressional bipartisanship, Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Mike Turner (R-Ohio), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), and Jason Crow (D-Col.) last week sent a letter to Trump seeking clarification on the administration's legal reasoning for the strikes and asking, "What evidence confirms that those killed were cartel operatives, rather than coerced, deceived, or trafficked civilians?"
"We strongly support the effort to reduce the flow of narcotics into this country," the lawmakers wrote. "This effort, like every action the United States military takes, must be done within the legal, moral, and ethical framework that sets us apart from our adversaries."
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Another 'Extrajudicial Execution' as US Bombs Second Alleged Venezuelan Drug Boat
"There is no legal justification for this military strike," said one Amnesty International campaigner. "The US must be held accountable."
Sep 15, 2025
President Donald Trump said Monday that the US carried out a fresh strike on what he said was a boat used by Venezuelan drug gangs, killing three people in what one human rights campaigner called another "extrajudicial execution."
"This morning, on my Orders, US Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the [US Southern Command] area of responsibility," Trump said on his Truth Social network. "The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the US."
"These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to US National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital US Interests," the Republican president continued. "The Strike resulted in three male terrorists killed in action. No US Forces were harmed in this Strike."
"BE WARNED—IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU!" Trump added. "The illicit activities by these cartels have wrought DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES ON AMERICAN COMMUNITIES FOR DECADES, killing millions of American Citizens. NO LONGER. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!"
US President Trump just announced that a second drug smuggling boat from Venezuela was hit by a US airstrike in the Caribbean, killing 3 people on board the boat.#Venezuela pic.twitter.com/dO34gYr9GZ
— CNW (@ConflictsW) September 15, 2025
Responding to arguments by legal experts and Venezuelan officials that the September 2 strike was illegal, Trump said Sunday that "what's illegal are the drugs that were on the boat... and the fact that 300 million people died last year from drugs."
Only 62 million people died in the entire world of all causes last year, making Trump's claim impossibly false.
Monday's attack followed the September 2 bombing of a vessel allegedly transporting cocaine off the Venezuelan coast, a strike that killed 11 people. Venezuelan officials say none of the 11 men were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, as claimed by Trump.
On his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Last month, the president reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat drug cartels abroad, sparking fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US attacks, invasions, occupations, and other interventions since the issuance of the dubious Monroe Doctrine in 1823.
The Intercept's Nick Turse reported Monday that the Trump administration's recently rebranded Department of War "is thwarting congressional oversight" of the September 2 attack.
“I’m incredibly disturbed by this new reporting that the Trump administration launched multiple strikes on the boat off Venezuela,” Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said in response to Turse's reporting. “They didn’t even bother to seek congressional authorization, bragged about these killings—and teased more to come.”
Common Dreams reported last week that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) introduced a war powers resolution seeking to restrain Trump from conducting attacks in the Caribbean.
Also last week, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) led a letter signed by two dozen Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asserting that the Trump administration offered "no legitimate justification" for the first boat strike.
It's not just congressional Democrats who have decried Trump's September 2 attack. Last week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that "the recent drone attack on a small speedboat over 2,000 miles from our shore without identification of the occupants or the content of the boat is in no way part of a declared war, and defies our longstanding Coast Guard rules of engagement."
“What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial," Paul later added.
Paul also mirrored Democratic lawmakers' questioning of Trump's narrative that the boat bombed on September 2 was heading to the United States.
Echoing congressional critics, Daphne Eviatar, director of Amnesty International's Security With Human Rights program, said of Monday's attack, "Today, President Trump claimed his administration carried out another lethal strike against a boat in the Caribbean."
"This is an extrajudicial execution, which is murder," Eviatar added. "There is no legal justification for this military strike. The US must be held accountable."
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