UK cuts intelligence sharing with US Caribbean boat strikes, calling them 'illegal': Report
Iran Press TV
Tuesday, 11 November 2025 9:20 PM
The UK has suspended sharing of maritime intelligence with the US over concerns that Washington is using British-provided information to carry out deadly and unlawful military strikes on, what the White House insists are, drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean.
The move, marking a serious rupture between two of the world's closest intelligence allies, was reported by CNN on Tuesday amid deepening international alarm over the legality of the US military's expanding campaign in Latin American waters.
According to the report, British officials believe the strikes, which have killed at least 76 people since September, amount to extrajudicial killings and breach the international law.
The UK has been using its Caribbean territories as intelligence outposts towards tracking, what London has called, suspected smuggling vessels.
That intelligence was routinely shared with the Joint Interagency Task Force South, a US-led command center in Florida coordinating reported drug interdiction efforts with multiple partner nations.
Those operations traditionally involved intercepting and boarding vessels, detaining crews, and seizing reported narcotic consignments. They, however, would not include launching missiles.
After Washington began authorizing lethal strikes on small boats earlier this year, London grew concerned that its data might be used to select targets, CNN noted.
Sources told the network that the UK halted its intelligence cooperation over a month ago, following internal legal reviews and warnings that the American campaign risked violating the international humanitarian law.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has denounced the US strikes as a clear breach of the international law, calling them "extrajudicial killings."
The change in US policy has also drawn criticism from within its own military ranks.
CNN reported that Adm. Alvin Holsey, head of US Southern Command, offered to resign after questioning the legality of the strikes during a heated meeting with senior Department of War officials.
Several military lawyers have also expressed doubts about the operation's compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict, though, the Pentagon insists that all actions are lawful.
Legal experts say the US's self-proclaimed justification that drug smugglers are "enemy combatants" in an armed conflict with America, does not stand under the international law.
They note that designating criminal groups as "foreign terrorist organizations" does not grant open-ended authority to kill, particularly when some targeted boats were reportedly stationary or attempting to flee.
Canada, another long-standing US partner in such operations, has also distanced itself from the strikes. While continuing to cooperate with the US Coast Guard under Operation Caribbean, Ottawa has formally instructed Washington not to use Canadian intelligence in any lethal operations.
Observers say the growing resistance from Washington's closest allies underscores a widening rift over, what critics have called, reckless militarization disguised as anti-drug policy.
Over the past month, the United States has resorted to significant naval buildup in the Latin American waters amid heighted rhetoric targeting democratically-elected political establishments in Venezuela and Colombia.
Numerous reports have pointed to Washington's seeking the buildup to serve as a prelude to further military aggression.
In early November, investigative news outlet Drop Site News reported that the US's campaign against Venezuela had quietly broadened to include targets in Colombia and Mexico, under a push led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and supported by hardline allies of President Donald Trump.
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