'They are murder victims': Senator suggests US strikes have killed people who weren't involved in drug trafficking

The U.S. military's strikes on alleged drug boats have likely illegally killed "individuals who are not involved in narcotrafficking," Sen. Tim Kaine told the White House on Monday, following "a careful review" of classified information he has seen so far.

"They are murder victims," the Virginia Democrat wrote in a letter to President Donald Trump.

So far, the U.S. military has killed at least 221 people and destroyed at least 67 vessels in the "Operation Southern Spear" campaign, which began last September. The administration has told Congress the U.S. is in an "armed conflict" against drug cartels, labelling those killed "unlawful combatants" and claiming the ability to engage in lethal strikes without judicial review due to a classified U.S. Justice Department finding.

But Kaine said Monday that his review has led him to believe "the United States is engaged in violent and fatal attacks against people far beyond" the parameters of the classified legal opinion. He added, "A careful review of the available evidence suggests that the United States has killed individuals who are not involved in narcotrafficking."

Kaine urged Trump to "examine the circumstances of these strikes" and cease what he called an "illegal, costly and ineffective" operation.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly defended the strikes in a statement to CNN on Monday evening.

"All of these decisive strikes have been against designated narcoterrorists bringing deadly poison to our shores, and the president will continue to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice," she said.

[Note: this dispatch is a near-verbatim syndicated/localized reprint of the CNN wire copy above (British/Canadian spelling 'labelling' vs CNN's 'labeling'); treated in-piece as the international bucket's entry, disclosed as such, not as independent Canadian reporting.]