Washington, Jan 13 (EFE).- The Pentagon would have used a secret aircraft with a civilian appearance in the first attack against a vessel that, according to the administration of President Donald Trump, was transporting drugs, an operation that caused the death of 11 people last September in international waters of the Caribbean, near Venezuela, officials informed the daily The New York Times on condition of anonymity. According to the newspaper, the aircraft did not carry visible weaponry under its wings and hid its munitions inside the fuselage, in addition to not presenting any military appearance. Officials cited by the publication stated that they observed surveillance images of the attack. The recordings show that the aircraft descended at low altitude and that the vessel returned towards Venezuela after spotting it, before the first attack. The operation was one of more than 35 carried out by the United States armed forces against vessels in international waters, under the justification of combating drug trafficking within the framework of the mission called 'Southern Spear'. According to The New York Times, two survivors of the first attack seemed to later greet the aircraft from the overturned hull's remains, before dying in a second attack that also sank the vessel's remains, which has intensified criticism about the legality of the operation. Since then, the U.S. Army has opted to use clearly identifiable military aircraft, including MQ-9 Reaper drones, in subsequent attacks. In an operation carried out in October, two survivors managed to escape by swimming and were rescued and repatriated to Colombia and Ecuador, avoiding a second attack, officials detailed. The attacks occurred before, on January 3 and by order of President Trump, U.S. military forces deployed near Venezuela entered the country to capture the leader of Caracas, Nicolás Maduro, who has been confined for ten days in a federal prison in New York. Operations against vessels attributed to drug trafficking have been questioned by analysts and by governments such as Colombia's, which consider them a violation of international law and denounce that they have left more than a hundred dead without their link to organized crime having been publicly demonstrated.
