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The Navy is<\/span> holding two survivors of a U.S. attack on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean, according to two government officials.<\/p>\n The two survivors were on board a boat that the U.S. military attacked on Thursday, according to the two officials who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity.\u00a0They are being held on a warship and are believed to be the first prisoners of the Trump administration\u2019s undeclared war against undisclosed \u201cnarcoterrorist\u201d groups.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Prior to Thursday\u2019s strike, the Trump administration had disclosed five attacks that had killed at least 27 people in the Caribbean. Each strike had been accompanied with a short aerial video posted to social media showing an explosion and the vessel bursting into flames.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s strike reportedly killed two or more people, the officials said.<\/p>\n The people are believed to be the first two prisoners of the Trump administration\u2019s undeclared war against \u201cnarcoterrorist\u201d groups.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson did not respond to questions about the Thursday attack and under what authorities the prisoners are being held.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven that there is no armed conflict, there is no basis to hold these survivors as law of war detainees,\u201d Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is a specialist in counterterrorism issues and the laws of war, told The Intercept. \u201cThe Trump administration is already using a make-believe armed conflict to kill people. Will it also use this make-believe armed conflict to detain people as well?\u201d<\/p>\n During the first attack on September 2, civilians aboard the boat survived an initial strike, two American officials familiar with the matter\u00a0told The Intercept<\/a>\u00a0at the time. They were then killed shortly after in a follow-up attack. It is unclear whether the persons were injured in the initial strike.<\/p>\n The attacks on boats are part of a war being waged by the Trump administration without the consent of Congress, according to a confidential notice<\/a>\u00a0that was sent to several congressional committees earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n President Donald Trump has decided that the United States is engaged in a declared state of \u201cnon-international armed conflict\u201d with \u201cdesignated terrorist organizations<\/a>\u201d or DTOs, according to the notice. It describes three people killed by U.S. commandos on a boat in the Caribbean last month as \u201cunlawful combatants,\u201d as if they were soldiers on a battlefield.\u00a0This is a significant departure from standard practice in the long-running U.S. war on drugs, in which law enforcement arrest suspected drug dealers as opposed to\u00a0summarily executing them<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n