EXCLUSIVE-US set to transfer Caribbean strike survivors overseas instead of POW-style detention

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON, Oct 18 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration is moving to send the two survivors of a Thursday strike in the Caribbean overseas rather than seek long-term military detention for them, four U.S. officials and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday.

The source, who like the U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity, said the survivors were being sent to Colombia and Ecuador.

The U.S. military staged a helicopter rescue for the survivors on Thursday after the strike on their semi-submersible vessel, suspected of trafficking illegal narcotics. The strike killed the other two crew members on board, sources told Reuters on Friday.

The U.S. military flew the survivors to a U.S. Navy warship in the Caribbean, where they were detained until at least Friday evening. It was not clear if they had already been flown off the ship as of Saturday morning.

The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, expected the survivors to eventually be sent to their home countries.

The decision to send the survivors home means that the U.S. military will not have to grapple with thorny legal issues surrounding military detention for suspected drug traffickers, whose alleged crimes do not fall neatly under the laws of war, legal experts say.

Speaking on Friday, Trump told reporters that the strike was against "a drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs."

He did not comment on how many were killed or survived the strike.

The Pentagon has offered no details on the attack so far and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has said the previous strikes killed 27 people, raising alarms among some legal experts and Democratic lawmakers, who question whether they adhere to the laws of war.

The strikes come against the backdrop of a U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean that includes guided missile destroyers, F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear submarine and around 6,500 troops as Trump escalates a standoff with the Venezuelan government.

On Wednesday, Trump disclosed he had authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela, adding to speculation in Caracas that the United States is attempting to topple Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro .

Maduro has denied any connection to drug smuggling and denounced the U.S. boat strikes as a pretext for regime change, portraying them as violations of sovereignty and international law.

In a letter this week to the United Nations' 15-member Security Council, seen by Reuters, Venezuela's U.N. Ambassador Samuel Moncada asked for a U.N. determination that the U.S. strikes off its coast are illegal and to issue a statement backing Venezuela's sovereignty.