US secretary of war Pete Hegseth (Photo credit: AP)

Republican-led Senate and House committees say they will increase scrutiny of the Pentagon after a report said defence secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the killing of all crew members of a vessel suspected to be carrying drugs, the Washington Post reports. The Post reported earlier that Hegseth had given a spoken order that all people aboard the boat be killed, citing people who had spoken on the condition of anonymity.Senator Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Jack Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, issued a statement Friday that they were aware of recent reports and have directed inquiries to the department of defence and will conduct “vigorous oversight,” according to the Post. The leaders of the House Armed Services also issued a brief statement on Saturday saying they are taking bipartisan action to look into the operation, the paper said. Hegseth claimed in a post on X that the department’s current operations in the Caribbean are “lawful under both US and international law.” Credit: Bloomberg