The United Kingdom will stop sharing intelligence with the U.S. regarding possible drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean, according to CNN.
The UK said it “does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal.”
The UK used to help the US identify these boats, sending any information to the Joint Interagency Task Force South in Florida. The Coast Guard would intercept these boats so they could stop and board the vessels, detain the crew, and seize any drugs.
The Trump administration started striking the boats in early September. I think the military has conducted 17 strikes, killing 76 people.
The British think the strikes violate international law.
President Donald Trump disagrees:
Before the US military began blowing up boats in September, countering illicit drug trafficking was handled by law enforcement and the US Coast Guard, Cartel members and drug smugglers were treated as criminals with due process rights — something the UK was happy to help with, the sources said.But the Trump administration has argued that the US military can legally kill suspected traffickers because they pose an imminent threat to Americans and are “enemy combatants” who are in an “armed conflict” with the US, according to a memo sent by the administration to Congress. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion, which is still classified, reinforcing that argument, CNN has reported, and Trump has designated a number of drug cartels as “foreign terrorist groups.” The White House has said repeatedly that the administration’s actions “comply fully with the Law of Armed Conflict,” the area of international law that is designed to prevent attacks on civilians.
The military has targeted suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific.
The latest one happened on Sunday in the Eastern Pacific. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the operation took out six boats, killing six people.
The last one in the Caribbean took place on November 6.
In each post, Hegseth has said intelligence connected the boats to a Designated Terrorist Organization.
Hegseth also defends each strike in every announcement, insisting that U.S. intelligence confirms that all of these vessels are “involved in illicit narcotics smuggling.”
“These narco-terrorists are bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans at home—and they will not succeed,” Hegseth wrote on November 1. “The Department will treat them EXACTLY how we treated Al-Qaeda. We will continue to track them, map them, hunt them, and kill them.”
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