Rules of war

Why the entire basis of attacks is legally suspect

- Robert Tait

Graphic depictions of two survivors being killed by a second US military strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat have provoked outrage where previously there was none - or at least relatively little.

A firestorm of controversy has greeted a recent Washington Post report that suggested a deadly attack on a vessel carrying 11 people in the Caribbean was followed with a second assault after the initial strike failed to kill everybody onboard.

Since September, the Trump administration has targeted vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific suspected of being used by “narco-terrorists” to export illicit narcotics to the US - killing at least 81 people in more than 20 strikes.

The administration has said the strikes are legal under the rules of war, arguing that the US is engaged in armed conflict with traffickers, whom it accuses of being in league with Venezuela's autocratic president, Nicolás Maduro, to flood the US with illicit narcotics.

The rationale has been widely rejected by most legal experts, who have pointed out that the US is not in conflict with an armed group involved in attacking its territory or its assets abroad.