(CNN) — President Donald Trump has determined that the US is in an “armed conflict” with the drug cartels his administration has designated as terrorist organizations, according to a notice the Pentagon provided to Congress on Wednesday obtained by CNN.

The notice also says the president has determined that smugglers for the cartels are “unlawful combatants,” and therefore the Defense Department was legally authorized to strike a boat in the Caribbean last month believed to be transporting members of a group the administration has designated a terrorist organization.

The US military has carried out at least three such strikes over the last month, which have killed 17 people in total, CNN has reported. But the notice provided to Congress only mentioned one of the strikes, which took

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