The United Kingdom has suspended intelligence sharing with the United States about suspected drug trafficking in the Caribbean over its objections to the boat strikes, according to a new report by CNN national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand.
Over the past few months, President Donald Trump has ordered strikes on multiple boats the administration has claimed are “narcoterrorists” transporting drugs intended for the U.S., resulting in more than 70 deaths. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other Trump administration officials have offered several claimed justifications for the strikes, but they have been loudly criticized for lacking legal authority, as they are a sharp departure from past practices to interdict suspected drug trafficking boats and arrest the occupants.
The Trump administration’s claims that the boat occupants were “enemy combatants” who were in drug cartels that were “foreign terrorist groups” that were in an “armed conflict” with the U.S., and therefore complied with the Law of Armed Conflict, “[b]ut legal experts say the Law of Armed Conflict would still apply to civilian drug traffickers, and the designation of a group as a foreign terrorist organization does not automatically authorize the use of lethal force,” Bertrand reported Monday.
Government officials in Venezuela and Colombia have publicly released information on some of the strikes denying that the boat occupants were drug traffickers or gang members, and several of the boats “have either been stationary or were turning around when they were attacked…undermining the administration’s claim that they posed an imminent threat that could not be dealt with through interdiction and arrest,” wrote Bertrand.
As Bertrand reported, for years the UK has shared with the US information gathered from its intelligence assets located in its Caribbean territories that has aided the Coast Guard in identifying and locating suspected drug trafficking boats.
In the past, this entailed the Brits sending their intelligence to the Joint Interagency Task Force South located in Florida and then the U.S. Coast Guard stopping the boats, boarding them, detaining the crew members, and seizing the drugs. These matters were handled not like military strikes but criminal justice matters, providing the suspected drug traffickers with due process rights and usually getting resolved without fatalities.
The UK had previously been “happy to help” the Americans, but the growing list of lethal military strikes led the UK to grow “concerned” that the U.S. would use the British intelligence information to select targets, reported Bertrand. As UK officials believe these strikes “violate international law,” they did not wish to be “complicit” in these “illegal attacks,” according to sources familiar with the matter.
“The UK’s decision marks a significant break from its closest ally and intelligence sharing partner and underscores the growing skepticism over the legality of the US military’s campaign around Latin America,” wrote Bertrand. The sources said that the suspension of intelligence sharing “began over a month ago,” and it was unclear how long it might last.
Bertrand shared her reporting on Tuesday’s episode of The Situation Room, and co-anchors Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown both expressed how remarkable it was for such a close ally to cease sharing intelligence with the U.S.
“We were just talking about, Wolf — we don’t know of another time that something like this has happened,” said Brown.
“I don’t remember a time,” replied Blitzer, “where the UK has not only suspended intelligence cooperation on a specific issue with the U.S., but is also accusing the U.S. of violating international law by engaging in these operations in the Caribbean, going after these boats.”
“It is very significant,” Brown agreed.
Canada has also “distanced itself” from the boat strikes, reported Bertrand, with sources telling CNN that Canada had not yet gone so far as to completely cut off intelligence sharing, but had ” has made clear to the US that it does not want its intelligence being used to help target boats for deadly strikes.”
Watch the clip above via CNN.
The post UK Suspends Sharing Intelligence With US on Suspected Drug Trafficking in Caribbean — Views Boat Strikes as ‘Illegal’: Report first appeared on Mediaite.
