Defense department watchdog opens inquiry into US airstrikes on alleged drug boats

The Pentagon’s internal watchdog has opened an investigation into whether US military commanders followed proper procedures when conducting boat strikes in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific.The office of inspector general at the Department of Defense is examining whether military commanders stuck to the standard six-step process the US military is required to follow before approving and carrying out lethal strikes, according to an 11 May memo initiating the review.The review covers operations run by US Southern Command, which oversees American military activity across the region and is based in Doral, Florida.The Pentagon declined to comment. Southern Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Operation Southern Spear, a US military campaign to strike boats in the Caribbean Sea, has sparked mass outrage and allegations that the US has violated international law.The Trump administration has described the operation as an effort to fight “narco-traffickers” from Latin America on their way to the US. The US has since conducted at least 58 attacks, according to a tracker from the law journal Just Security, killing 193 people, including 13 missing and presumed dead.The administration has also insisted the operation is “on firm legal ground”. In November Sean Parnell, then chief spokesperson at the Pentagon, said: “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both US and international law, with all actions in complete compliance with the law of armed conflict.”The inspector general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what prompted the investigation, and when it would publish the findings, on Tuesday. The office did tell Bloomberg News that the inquiry was self-initiated, and did not come from a congressional request.Human rights groups, watchdogs and international bodies, including a panel of human rights experts with the United Nations, have said the strikes amount to extrajudicial executions and are a violation to US and international law.A joint investigation published this month by journalists led by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism identified 13 of those killed, finding they came from extremely poor communities across the region, with little or no apparent connection to organized drug networks. The reporting described the victims as day laborers who took work on the boats out of desperation, not as figures with any meaningful role in the drug trade.“The US is not taking down any Pablo Escobar or El Chapo,” said María Teresa Ronderos, the center’s director, adding that the strikes were actually hitting young people living in precarious conditions.Families of some of those killed in strikes have filed lawsuits against the US government, alleging the attacks were unlawful.Democrats have repeatedly tried and failed to rein in the deadly operation through Congress. Senators Adam Schiff of California and Tim Kaine of Virginia sponsored a resolution to prevent the administration from launching further strikes without congressional approval, which failed in the Senate 51–48 in October. The Republican-controlled Senate twice rejected resolutions that would have limited the administration’s authority to continue military action.In December, the Senate armed services chair, Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, said that his committee found “no evidence of war crimes” after doing its own examination of the strikes.In March, the Democratic representatives Joaquin Castro and Sara Jacobs followed up to write a letter in support of an inter-American human rights investigation into whether the strikes were legal.The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said at a G7 meeting in November that the strikes violated international law and risked destabilizing the region. The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, addressed the UN general assembly in September to call for a criminal process to be opened against Donald Trump over the strikes.The inspector general’s office will carry out its review at the Pentagon and at Southern Command headquarters, and has asked senior officials to designate points of contact within five days.