By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -How many suspected drug boats has the U.S. military destroyed in the waters off Venezuela? It might be as high as six or as low as four, depending on who you ask.
The latest confusion arose on Sunday when U.S. President Donald Trump announced the United States carried out yet another strike on a boat allegedly transporting drugs off the coast of Venezuela on Saturday.
“We did another one last night,” Trump told reporters during a speech at Naval Station Norfolk, next to the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier.
The Pentagon has yet to confirm that strike, however, and the White House did not respond to a request for clarification. Two U.S. officials told Reuters they are unaware of any such operation on Saturday.
The fuzzy accounting adds to the mystery surrounding the attacks, which have alarmed Democratic lawmakers and some experts, who see Trump testing the limits of the law as he expands the scope of presidential power.
It was unclear whether Trump might have mistaken the Saturday strike for one announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday in the waters off Venezuela that killed four suspected drug traffickers.
This wasn’t the first time that U.S. military officials have been unable to clarify Trump’s remarks about U.S. military activities in the Caribbean.
Last month, he cited an operation to take out a drug vessel that analysts thought was either a top-secret third strike or a poorly phrased reference to a Coast Guard operation which didn’t destroy a boat but in which personnel boarded it.
“We knocked off actually three boats, not two. But you saw two,” Trump told reporters on September 16, suggesting a secret operation or one so new it hadn’t been disclosed.
What is public so far is the following: On four occasions, either Trump or Hegseth have posted on social media about the strikes, including short videos of the operations. Twenty-one individuals on the vessels have been killed, according to the Trump administration.
The administration has not detailed what evidence it has against the vessels or individuals, has not said what type of munitions or platforms were used in the strikes or even what quantity of drugs the vessels were allegedly carrying.
Last week, the Pentagon disclosed to Congress in a notification reviewed by Reuters that Trump has determined the United States is engaged in “a non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels.
The document aimed to explain the Trump administration’s legal rationale for unleashing U.S. military force in the Caribbean.
Some former military lawyers say the legal explanations given by the Trump administration for killing suspected drug traffickers at sea instead of apprehending them fail to satisfy requirements under the law of war, which requires several criteria to be met before taking lethal action – including first using non-lethal means like firing warning shots.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali, Editing by Don Durfee and Deepa Babington)
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