The attack on a boat in the Caribbean last Tuesday was carried out by a drone, according to a Republican senator.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., took aim at the Trump administration for glorifying the killing of people without trial, saying that the “lethal strike” was a breach of long-accepted rules of engagement. He also disclosed that it was a drone strike, a fact that the Pentagon and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have refused to reveal.

Paul first criticized the attack in a back-and-forth with Vice President JD Vance on social media. Vance responded to the suggestion that the strike was a war crime by writing on X, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.” Paul responded on Saturday calling Vance’s comments about killing people without a trial “despicable and thoughtless.”

In an interview with The Intercept, Paul said he didn’t oppose the use of drones in war but objected to summarily killing people without due process.

“During my time in the Senate, I have been the foremost critic of drones being used on civilians, especially Americans,” Paul, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, told The Intercept. “The recent drone attack on a small speedboat over 2,000 miles from our shore without identification of the occupants or the content of the boat is in no way part of a declared war and defies our longstanding Coast Guard rules of engagement which include: warnings to halt, non-lethal force to capture, and ultimately lethal force in self-defense or in cases of resistance.”

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was also alarmed about the attack. “It is unacceptable that, a week after the strike, Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee have yet to be briefed by the administration on this use of force despite the Committee’s clear jurisdiction,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. “We are a nation of laws, not of one man’s whims. Donald Trump does not have the authority to order strikes in international waters.”

The attack was first announced to the world when President Trump posted a video to social media last week showing a four-engine speedboat cutting through the water with numerous people on board. An explosion then destroys the boat. Trump said the strike killed 11 people whom he characterized as “narcoterrorists.” The administration has offered no evidence to bolster these assertions.

Experts say that whoever was on board, the attack was an extrajudicial killing by the Trump administration — or flat-out murder.

“All people, no matter where they live or what crime they have been accused of, have fundamental human rights, including the rights to life and due process,” said Annie Shiel, the U.S. advocacy director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict. “Using lethal force in this way, outside of any recognizable armed conflict and without due process, is an extrajudicial execution, not an act of war.”

Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is a specialist in counterterrorism issues and the laws of war, said that given the evidence that has emerged, the government’s statements, and after discussions with other national security lawyers in the week since the strike, he has formed stronger conclusions about the legality of the attack.

“I’m much more inclined to........

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