The Trump administration is waging a secret war against undisclosed enemies without the consent of Congress, according to a confidential notice that was sent to several congressional committees this week and obtained by The Intercept. It marks the most detailed explanation of the legal underpinnings offered by the administration for a series of lethal attacks on boats in the Caribbean that began last month.

President Donald Trump has decided that the United States is engaged in a declared state of “non-international armed conflict” with “ designated terrorist organizations ” or DTOs, according to the notice. It describes three people killed by U.S. commandos on a boat in the Carribean last month as “unlawful combatants,” as if they were soldiers on a battlefield. This is a s

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