Fact-checking U.S. military boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific as death toll passes 200

This article originally appeared on PolitiFact.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean during a Senate hearing June 2, saying the Defense Department determined the strikes' legality and based its decisions on intelligence information.

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"Every strike has a legal officer on the deck that has to make a determination about whether the call is legal or not, and this is done by the Department of War, the way it's been done in other theaters around the world," Rubio said in response to a question from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., about the criteria to target boats.

The U.S. military on May 30 struck another boat it said was engaged in "narco-trafficking operations" in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing three men and increasing the total death toll to 205 people.