President Donald Trump shared details of a third airstrike on a vessel in international waters allegedly carrying drugs, killing three people.
Trump said in a social media post on Friday the U.S. military attacked a boat he said was “conducting narcotrafficking” in the waters near South America and Central America, and that intelligence indicated the boat was headed for the United States.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans,” Trump wrote on X. “The strike killed 3 male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel, which was in international waters.”
It’s unclear when the strike Trump detailed on Friday took place.
In total, 17 people have been killed in three U.S. airstrikes on suspected drug-running vessels this month.
Trump initially revealed the third strike to reporters on Tuesday as he departed Washington for his state visit to the United Kingdom.
“We knocked off, actually three boats, not two, but we saw two,” he said on Tuesday, referring to the two strikes Trump had formerly announced.
The use of military force on alleged drug smugglers has raised concerns about violating the due process rights of suspected criminals. Republican Sen. Rand Paul sharply criticized the White House following the first attack, and Democrats requested the administration share the intelligence it used to justify the first two attacks.
Legal experts from both parties have suggested the attacks may be illegal. John Yoo, the former Bush administration DOJ official who crafted the legal justification for enhanced interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks, told POLITICO that the Trump administration has not made a sufficient argument to treat suspected cartel members as enemies of war.
“We can’t just consider anything that harms the country to be a matter for the military. Because that could potentially include every crime,” Yoo said.
