According to a report in the New York Times, the US military disguised one of its planes as a civilian plane in order to attack a suspected drug smuggling vessel from Venezuela.
The newspaper said in an article published late Monday that the incident raises questions about possible war crimes.
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There was no immediate response from the White House after the report was released.
This article focuses on the first known attack in the boat bombing campaign that President Donald Trump launched in the Southern Caribbean on September 2nd.
At the time, President Trump announced on his platform Truth Social that 11 people had been killed in the first attack and accused them of being “narco-terrorists.”
However, the New York Times reported that the planes used in the military operation were painted to look like civilian ships, and the missiles were housed within the fuselage rather than being mounted visibly under the wings.
Such misrepresentation could be considered a war crime under the laws governing armed conflict, the article said.
The paper quoted retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Stephen Lepper, a deputy judge’s adviser, as saying that concealing military insignia or weapons could amount to “betrayal”, a deceptive tactic prohibited by international law.
“Hiding one’s identity is an element of treachery,” Lepper told the Times. “If an aircraft flying over cannot be identified as a fighter, it should not engage in combat operations.”
The report does not say who directed the military aircraft to camouflage.
However, three sources told The New York Times that it was “painted in the usual military gray and had no military markings.” Still, its transponder was transmitting a military tail number.
If true, the report would reveal new details that complicate the story surrounding the Trump administration’s boat bombing campaign and the first strike on September 2nd.
The Trump administration has repeatedly said the attacks on boats are necessary to prevent illegal drugs from reaching U.S. shores from South America.
In a memo to Congress, President Trump also indicated that he considers the United States to be in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels, which he called illegal combatants.
However, there is no legal basis for making such a decision, and drug trafficking is not equivalent to an armed attack and is considered a criminal offense.
Human rights experts, including those from the United Nations, have also characterized the attack as an act of extrajudicial killing and a violation of international law.
In explaining the Sept. 2 attack, President Trump accused the targets of members of Torren de Aragua, a criminal organization “operating under the control” of Venezuela’s then-President Nicolas Maduro.
Earlier this month, the U.S. military abducted Maduro and took him to New York to face criminal charges related to drug trafficking.
Trump’s announcement of the attack was accompanied by a short 29-second video showing the boat being engulfed by a single explosion.
But in December, the Washington Post reported that the attack was more of a “double tap,” with US Navy Admiral Frank Bradley allegedly authorizing a second missile launch to kill two previously unreported survivors.
The report similarly raised concerns that a war crime had occurred, as attacking a shipwrecked enemy is considered illegal even in wartime.
A new New York Times report raises further questions about the “Double Tap” attack, including whether the survivors would have been saved had the plane’s military markings been visible.
Officials told the Times the plane swooped low enough for people on the boat to see.
The Times reported that “the two survivors of the initial attack then appeared to wave at the disguised aircraft as they clung to the wreckage.” The second attack killed them.
The newspaper compared their reactions to those of survivors of the October 16 attack.
The October attack similarly left two survivors from the initial explosion, but those survivors swam away after the initial attack hit. They were then pulled from the sea and repatriated to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador.
Lawmakers were shown an expanded video of the Sept. 2 attack, and the Times reported that questions about wrongdoing were raised privately in a private meeting with military leaders.
“The U.S. military’s manual on the laws of war discusses betrayal in detail, saying it includes cases in which a combatant assumes civilian status because the enemy ‘fails to take necessary precautions,'” the Times said.
However, the newspaper noted that after the September 2 attack, the US military switched to clearly marked military aircraft, including MQ-9 Reaper drones, to carry out subsequent boat attacks.
Trump administration officials also defended military action within the legal authority of the U.S. government. The Trump administration denies any wrongdoing at any point in the boat bombing operation.
At least 35 airstrikes have been carried out in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean since September 2nd, killing as many as 114 people, with one estimated to have been killed.
