U.S. military says two alleged ‘narco-terrorists’ killed in latest strike in Caribbean Sea

The Mi­a­mi-based Unit­ed States South­ern Com­mand (SOUTH­COM) said that two al­leged male “nar­co-ter­ror­ists” were killed in a “lethal ki­net­ic strike” on a ves­sel op­er­at­ed by “Des­ig­nat­ed Ter­ror­ist Or­ga­ni­za­tions” in the Caribbean Sea.

SOUTH­COM did not iden­ti­fy the “Des­ig­nat­ed Ter­ror­ist Or­ga­ni­za­tions” but said the strike was giv­en at the di­rec­tion of its Com­man­der Gen­er­al Fran­cis L. Dono­van.

SOUTH­COM said Joint Task Force South­ern Spear’s in­tel­li­gence “con­firmed the ves­sel was tran­sit­ing along known nar­co-traf­fick­ing routes in the Caribbean and was en­gaged in nar­co-traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tions.”

The US mil­i­tary said there were six male sur­vivors from the “lethal ki­net­ic strike” and that “fol­low­ing the en­gage­ment, US­SOUTH­COM im­me­di­ate­ly no­ti­fied US Coast Guard to ac­ti­vate the Search and Res­cue sys­tem for the sur­vivors.

“No US mil­i­tary forces were harmed,” it added.

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has been cr­ti­cised by Con­gres­sion­al De­moc­rats and even some Re­pub­li­cans over what they char­ac­ter­ized as il­le­gal killings of al­leged drug traf­fick­ers in the Caribbean Sea.

The leg­is­la­tors have raised se­ri­ous due process is­sues and the killing of in­no­cent peo­ple. Hu­man rights groups have al­so de­scribed the at­tacks as “ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings.”

In late March, SOUTH­COM said the US mil­i­tary killed four al­leged “nar­co-ter­ror­ists” in the Caribbean Sea dur­ing a “lethal Ki­net­ic Strike.”

That strike brought to over 163 the num­ber of so-called “nar­co-ter­ror­ists” killed in the Caribbean Sea and Pa­cif­ic Ocean since the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion be­gan at­tack­ing sus­pect­ed drug ves­sels in the Caribbean Sea last Sep­tem­ber.

In April, the Unit­ed States hu­man rights group, Hu­man Rights Watch, con­demned the US mil­i­tary strike on a ves­sel in the Caribbean Sea that killed four peo­ple.

Hu­man Rights Watch said the strike “high­lights a sus­tained pat­tern of un­law­ful use of lethal force out­side any con­text of armed con­flict, amount­ing to ex­tra­ju­di­cial ex­e­cu­tions.”

“These strikes aren’t one-off in­ci­dents, they’re part of a pat­tern of us­ing mil­i­tary force where the law does not per­mit it, over and over again,” said Sarah Yager, Wash­ing­ton di­rec­tor at Hu­man Rights Watch.

Hu­man Rights Watch said “in­ter­na­tion­al law draws a clear line be­tween armed con­flict and law en­force­ment.

“There is no armed con­flict in the Caribbean or Pa­cif­ic be­tween the US and any drug-traf­fick­ing or­ga­ni­za­tion. And so, there is no group of peo­ple who are a le­git­i­mate mil­i­tary tar­get.

“Out­side of armed con­flict, the de­lib­er­ate, lethal use of force is on­ly law­ful when strict­ly nec­es­sary to pro­tect life,” Hu­man Rights added.

In late Jan­u­ary, the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) said that fam­i­ly mem­bers of two Trinida­di­an men killed in a US mis­sile strike in Oc­to­ber were su­ing the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion for wrong­ful death and ex­tra­ju­di­cial killing.

The ACLU said Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Sama­roo, 41, were killed in one of the 36 strikes the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion had launched against civil­ian boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pa­cif­ic Ocean.

The ACLU said that, on Oc­to­ber 14, Joseph and Sama­roo were re­turn­ing from Venezuela to their homes in Las Cuevas, Trinidad and To­ba­go when a mis­sile struck their boat.

Four oth­er peo­ple al­so died in the strike, the ACLU said.

The le­gal di­rec­tor of the Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights, Ba­her Azmy, said it is ab­surd and dan­ger­ous for any state to just uni­lat­er­al­ly pro­claim that a ‘war’ ex­ists in or­der to de­ploy lethal mil­i­tary force.

“These are law­less killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for the­ater, which is why we need a court of law to pro­claim what is true and con­strain what is law­less. This is a crit­i­cal step in en­sur­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty, while the in­di­vid­u­als re­spon­si­ble may ul­ti­mate­ly be an­swer­able crim­i­nal­ly for mur­der and war crimes." —MI­A­MI (CMC)