The U.S. military sent two supersonic B-1 Lancer bombers to the coast of Venezuela on Thursday, just over a week after another formation of American bombers conducted a similar exercise simulating an attack.
The move comes amid an unusual U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and waters off Venezuela, fuelling speculation that President Donald Trump might be weighing options to unseat Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who faces narcoterrorism charges in the United States.
Adding to the tension, U.S. forces have been carrying out strikes since early September against vessels off Venezuela that Trump claims are involved in drug trafficking.
According to flight-tracking data, the B-1 bombers took off from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas before flying across the Caribbean and approaching Venezuela’s coast. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the mission, confirmed that the operation was a training flight.
The B-1 is capable of carrying more bombs than any other aircraft in the American arsenal.
A similar mission involving slower B-52 Stratofortress bombers was conducted in the same region last week. Those aircraft were accompanied by Marine Corps F-35B stealth fighter jets, stationed in Puerto Rico, for what the Pentagon described as a “bomber attack demo” in photos released online.
When Trump was asked about Thursday's B-1 flight and if it was meant to ramp up military pressure on Venezuela, he said, “it’s false, but we’re not happy with Venezuela for a lot of reasons. Drugs being one of them.”
The U.S. force in the Caribbean includes eight warships, P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, MQ-9 Reaper drones and an F-35 fighter squadron. A submarine has also been confirmed to be operating in the waters off South America.
Trump on Wednesday said he has the “legal authority” to carry out the strikes on the alleged drug-carrying boats and suggested similar strikes could be done on land.
“We will hit them very hard when they come in by land,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’re totally prepared to do that. And we’ll probably go back to Congress and explain exactly what we’re doing when we come to the land.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the military had conducted its ninth strike, killing three people in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It followed a strike Tuesday night, also in the eastern Pacific, that killed two people and brought the overall death toll from the strikes to at least 37.
The latest pair of strikes expanded the Trump administration’s campaign against drug trafficking in South America from the waters of the Caribbean to the eastern Pacific.
Hegseth has drawn a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown.
“Our message to these foreign terrorist organizations is we will treat you like we have treated al-Qaeda,” Hegseth told reporters on Thursday at the White House.
"We will find you, we will map your networks, we will hunt you down, and we will kill you," he added.
(With AP inputs)
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