US military says five killed in latest strike on alleged drug boats

BBC:

The US military says it struck two boats it alleges were carrying drugs on Wednesday, killing five people on board.

US Southern Command did not say where it had carried out the latest strikes but US forces have been targeting vessels they suspect of smuggling narcotics to the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific for the past three months.

Wednesday’s strike came a day after the US targeted what it said were “three narco-trafficking vessels travelling as a convoy”, killing at least three people.

The Trump administration has cast its operations as a non-international armed conflict with the alleged traffickers but legal experts say they could be in violation of the laws governing such conflict.

In total, there have been more than 30 strikes on vessels as part of the Trump administration’s “war on drugs” with more than 110 people killed since the US carried out its first attack on a boat in international waters on 2 September.

That first attack has come under particular scrutiny from lawmakers in Washington since it emerged that US forces struck the targeted boat twice.

Two people who had survived the first strike and were clinging to the hull of their boat were killed in the second.

Some lawmakers expressed concern that the “double-tap” strike breached the rules of engagement.