US EditionU.S. Attacked Boat With Aircraft That Looked Like a Civilian Plane
The Pentagon's use of aircraft disguised as civilian planes in drug boat strikes killed 11 people in September and raised war crime concerns over perfidy, experts said.
- On Monday, the Pentagon disclosed it used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane to attack a boat, with munitions hidden inside the fuselage and a modified 737 spotted at St. Croix airport, U.S. Virgin Islands.
- The administration justified the strikes by saying President Donald Trump determined the U.S. is in a `noninternational armed conflict` with 24 criminal gangs and kept planning closely held, excluding many military lawyers.
- Legal specialists warned the laws of armed conflict forbid feigning civilian status, identifying this as `perfidy`; Todd Huntley and Gen. Steven J. Lepper said disguising combatant aircraft could constitute a war crime.
- The military has since shifted to MQ-9 Reaper drones for boat strikes while Congress was briefed on the classified aircraft, and survivors were rescued and returned to Colombia and Ecuador.
- A range of law-of-war experts said U.S. military law and manuals bar targeting civilians posing no imminent threat, and some described the killings as murders citing Guantánamo-related precedents on `perfidy`.
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20 Articles
According to the New York Times, even in the context of the Trump administration that there is an armed conflict with suspected drug traffickers attacking the U.S., the laws of war prohibit "perfidiousness"; that is, the illegitimate use of deception to gain advantageTrump publishes a photo of him manipulated with the position of "president-in-Office of Venezuela" The Pentagon used a secret painted plane to make it look like a civilian plane in …
The Pentagon reportedly used a secret civilian-looking aircraft in the first attack on a vessel that, according to President Donald Trump’s administration, was transporting drugs, an operation that caused the death of 11 people last September in international waters of the Caribbean, near Venezuela, officials reported to The New York Times on condition of anonymity. According to the newspaper, the aircraft did not carry visible weapons under its…
The US Pentagon repainted an aircraft to resemble a civilian one the first time the country attacked an alleged drug smuggling boat, sources told the New York Times.
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