(MENAFN- Live Mint) In a significant development amid the US deploying naval and air forces in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific to 'curb drug trafficking', the United Kingdom (UK) has decided not to share some intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels, reported CNN.

Quoting sources familiar with the matter, the report stated that Britain believes that the attacks being conducted by the US are illegal, and it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes.

The intelligence was typically sent to the Joint Interagency Task Force South, a task force stationed in Florida, according to the report.

However, so far, there is no confirmation from the US.

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Over the last few weeks, President Donald Trump's administration has carried out a series of strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific on boats that Washington claims were ferrying drugs.

Meanwhile, escalating a military buildup, even as Venezuela has warned, a US aircraft carrier strike group arrived in Latin America.

The USS Gerald Ford, whose deployment was ordered nearly three weeks ago to help counter drug trafficking, had entered the command's area of responsibility, which encompasses Latin America and the Caribbean, according to Reuters, which quoted a statement from the US Naval Forces Southern Command.

The world's largest aircraft carrier“will bolster US capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere,” Chief Pentagon Spokesperson Sean Parnell said.

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A few days ago, the US forces killed six more people in strikes on alleged drug-running boats, bringing the campaign's total number of deaths to 76.

In a notice to Congress, the Trump administration has said that the US is engaged in "armed conflict" with Latin American drug cartels, describing them as terrorist groups as part of its justification for the strikes.

Earlier, Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told AFP that these instances violate international human rights law.

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Pointing out that Washington was portraying the strikes as part of“counter-narcotics operations”, he stressed that such operations“should not bring in issues of war or conflict or international humanitarian law”.

“It has to be the absolute last resort in the face of an immediate attack,” stated Turk.

Asked if he believed that the strikes could constitute extrajudicial killings, Turk said:“That's precisely what needs to be found out and investigated.”

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