It’s unclear whether survivors will be treated as prisoners of war or criminal defendants by US military
It’s unclear whether survivors will be treated as prisoners of war or criminal defendants by US military
The US has seized survivors of a military strike on a suspected drug-carrying vessel in the Caribbean, the first since Donald Trump began launching deadly attacks in the region last month, according to officials in Washington.
Thursday’s attack is believed to be at least the sixth strike in the waters off Venezuela since early September, and the first to result in survivors who were picked up by the US military. It was not immediately clear what would be done with the survivors, who the officials said were being held on a US navy vessel.
They confirmed the strike on the condition of anonymity because it has not yet been publicly acknowledged by the Trump administration.
This strike on Thursday brings the death toll from the US military action against vessels in the region to at least 28.
Trump justified the strikes by asserting that the United States was engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration when it declared a “war on terror” after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
