What was generally not considered by U.S. politicians at the time were the other actions taken under Operations Plan 34-Alpha just prior to the incident. The night before the launching of the actions against North Vietnamese facilities on Hòn Mê and Hòn Ngư islands, the SOG had launched a covert long-term agent team into North Vietnam, which was promptly captured. That night (for the second evening in a row), two flights of CIA-sponsored Laotian fighter-bombers (piloted by Thai mercenaries) attacked border outposts well within southwestern North Vietnam. The Hanoi government (which, unlike the U.S. government, had to give permission at the highest levels for the conduct of such missions) probably assumed that they were all a coordinated effort to escalate military actions against North Vietnam.