U.S. Attacked Boat With Aircraft That Looked Like a Civilian Plane; The New York Times, January 12, 2026

 Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt, John Ismay, Julian E. Barnes, Riley Mellen and Christiaan Triebert,  The New York Times; U.S. Attacked Boat With Aircraft That Looked Like a Civilian Plane

"The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said.

The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful — not murders — because President Trump “determined” the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels.

But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called “perfidy.”