The U.S. military used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane to carry out its first strike against an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean last September, the latest potential violation of the laws of war in the Trump administration’s wide-ranging, controversial campaign of air strikes across the region.
The craft involved in the attack, officials briefed on the matter told The New York Times, did not carry visible munitions under its wings and wasn’t painted with clear military markings.
Such tactics, retired Maj. Gen. Steven J. Lepper, former deputy judge advocate general for the U.S Air Force, could constitute the crime of “perfidy,” which prohibits combatants from pretending to be civilians to trick their enemies, he told the paper.
“Shielding your identity is an element of perfidy,” he said. “If the aircraft flying above is not identifiable as a combatant aircraft, it should not be engaged in combatant activity.”
“The U.S. military utilizes a wide array of standard and nonstandard aircraft depending on mission requirements,” the Pentagon said in a statement when asked about the report. “Prior to the fielding and employment of each aircraft, they go through a rigorous procurement process to ensure compliance with domestic law, department policies and regulations, and applicable international standards, including the law of armed conflict.”
The September 2 strike at issue, which killed 11 people, previously attracted controversy regarding how orders were communicated for the military to take out two survivors of the initial attack who were clinging to wreckage, another choice that critics said violated the laws of war.
Administration officials have said Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did not directly order the “double-tap strike,” but rather that a Navy admiral did so under Hegseth’s general brief for the attack. Hegseth has said he fully supported the choice and would’ve made the same decision himself.
Amid controversy over the attack, Hegseth said in December that the Pentagon would not release unedited video of the strike.
The administration has also faced criticisms over the legal basis of the entire campaign, with critics arguing that such strikes amount to illegal extrajudicial killings against non-combatants outside the theater of war.
The administration insists its attacks against alleged drug boats are valid because the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with non-state drug groups.
The military has not shared extensive evidence about who is on the boats or how it is known they are tied to drug-trafficking.
The campaign, which has killed at least 123 people across 35 strikes, reached a new phase earlier this month, when U.S. forces entered Venezuela and captured its leader, Nicolas Maduro, whom the U.S. has accused of being in league with drug groups.
Lawmakers have said they were not briefed about the operation in advance, and a bipartisan group of senators voted last week to block Trump from further force within or against Venezuela without getting approval from Congress.
