New details have now emerged about a deadly U.S. military strike carried out last September against a boat the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, raising fresh legal questions about how the operation was conducted. According to officials briefed on the matter, the Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to resemble a civilian plane during the first attack, killing 11 people.
The aircraft reportedly lacked visible military markings and carried its weapons inside the fuselage rather than under its wings, giving it the outward appearance of a nonmilitary plane. Legal specialists say that detail matters because the Trump administration has justified its lethal boat strikes by arguing that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels, a determination made by President Trump.
Under the laws of armed conflict, combatants are prohibited from disguising themselves as civilians in order to deceive an enemy into lowering their guard before attacking. That practice, known as perfidy, is considered a war crime. Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Steven J. Lepper, a former deputy judge advocate general, said that if the aircraft’s appearance led the people on the boat to believe it was civilian and not a threat, the strike could violate those standards.
Officials familiar with surveillance video from the attack said the aircraft flew low enough for those aboard the boat to see it. After spotting the plane, the boat reportedly turned back toward Venezuela before being struck. Following the initial attack, two survivors were seen waving at the aircraft after climbing onto overturned wreckage. A subsequent strike then killed them and sank the remains of the vessel. It remains unclear whether the survivors understood that their boat had been hit by a missile.
Since that incident, the military has shifted to using clearly identifiable military aircraft, including MQ-9 Reaper drones, for similar operations. In a separate October attack, two survivors of an initial strike were able to swim away and avoid a follow-up attack. They were later rescued by the U.S. military and returned to Colombia and Ecuador.
U.S. military manuals stress the importance of distinguishing combatants from civilians and explicitly warn against perfidy. Questions about whether the September strike crossed that line have reportedly been raised during classified congressional briefings, though the issue has not been debated publicly because the aircraft involved remains classified.
The Pentagon has declined to comment on the specific aircraft used but insists that all weapons and platforms undergo legal review. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said the military employs a wide range of aircraft depending on mission needs and that all are vetted to comply with domestic law and international standards, including the law of armed conflict. The White House defended the strike as being directed by President Trump to target narcotics trafficking and violent cartel activity, stating it was lawful.
While officials confirmed the aircraft was not painted in standard military gray and lacked markings, they said it transmitted a military tail number via radio signal. Legal experts countered that this would not necessarily address perfidy concerns, since those on the boat likely had no way to detect the signal.
The military has killed at least 123 people in 35 boat attacks, including the September strike. Critics argue the orders authorizing the strikes are illegal and that civilians cannot be targeted absent an imminent threat. The administration maintains the operations are lawful, asserting that those on the boats are combatants in a noninternational armed conflict declared by the president. That claim remains sharply disputed, keeping the legality of the strikes under intense scrutiny.
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