President Donald Trump’s administration faced renewed war-crime allegations Monday after a report said the government used aircraft made to look like civilian planes during at least one strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat.
The New York Times reported that, during a September “double tap” strike that killed 11 people, the aircraft involved appeared to be disguised as a civilian plane. The report also said the plane’s munitions were concealed inside the fuselage rather than mounted openly on the wings.
The report referenced images posted on Reddit by amateur plane-spotting enthusiasts that appeared to show modified 737s—painted white with a blue stripe and lacking military markings—at the St. Croix airport in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Military law experts told the NYT that presenting a combat aircraft as nonmilitary could meet the definition of a war crime known as “perfidy,” which involves deception intended to gain a protected status in conflict.
“Shielding your identity is an element of perfidy,” retired Maj. Gen. Steven Lepper, a former deputy judge advocate general for the United States Air Force, told the outlet. “If the aircraft flying above is not identifiable as a combatant aircraft, it should not be engaged in combatant activity.”
According to the report, after the strike the military shifted to using “recognizably military aircraft” for boat strikes, including MQ-9 Reaper drones.
