UK blocks intel to US, thinks strikes are indeed illegal

As the Pentagon announces new strikes on boats the Trump administration alleges are operated by drug cartels smuggling narcotics toward the United States, concerns around the operation are mounting.

CNN is now reporting that the UK has halted some intelligence sharing with Washington over the legality of the campaign, which has left a total of 75 people dead since it began in September.

Highly questionable

According to CNN, British officials have quietly suspended the sharing of certain intelligence on suspected drug-smuggling vessels with Washington, after concluding that the legal basis for the US strikes is highly questionable.

The UK, which has long hosted key listening posts and surveillance assets across its Caribbean territories as part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, had for years helped the US track suspected narcotics boats so they could be intercepted by the US Coast Guard, their crews detained and their cargo seized.

Now, London fears that continuing to provide targeting information could make it directly complicit in what it increasingly views as potentially unlawful military attacks that have left 75 people dead since the operation began in September.

«These vessels were known by our intelligence to be associated with illicit narcotics smuggling, were carrying narcotics, and were transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route in the Eastern Pacific.»

Two new strikes

The news comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on X that two new strikes were carried out in the eastern Pacific Ocean over the weekend, killing six alleged drug smugglers he described as «cartel terrorists».

Hegseth defended the operation by insisting that «These vessels were known by our intelligence to be associated with illicit narcotics smuggling, were carrying narcotics, and were transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route in the Eastern Pacific.»

In his post on X, Hegseth stressed that «two lethal kinetic strikes were conducted on two vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations» and that «Both strikes were conducted in international waters and 3 male narco-terrorists were aboard each vessel. All 6 were killed. No U.S. forces were harmed».

An even sharper escalation of the conflict

These latest strikes are further fueling unease across Latin America and on the international stage.

They come just as the Trump administration's newest move — the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the Pentagon's largest warship, to Latin American waters in what officials say is the biggest US military presence in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama — raises fears of an even sharper escalation of the conflict in South America.

At the same time, the UK is making it increasingly clear it no longer wants to be part of this campaign.

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