Pentagon and Venezuela: Real Concern or Fishing in Troubled Waters?

 

The Pentagon carried out Friday another lethal strike on what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said was a boat carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela. Four individuals were killed.

On Thursday, NBC News reported that the US administration had provided Congress with a notice that US President Donald Trump has “determined” the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and that members of those organizations can be targeted as unlawful combatants.Previous US administrations have used the same designation to target leaders and members of designated foreign terrorist organizations, like Al Qaeda or Islamic State.

Venezuela on Thursday said it had detected five US fighter jets flying near its Caribbean coast. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino described the incident as a “provocation” by the United States that posed a threat to national security, reports CNN.

“They are combat aircraft. Combat aircraft that US imperialism has dared to approach the Venezuelan coast,” Padrino said in comments broadcast on state TV.

Later on Thursday, the Venezuelan government issued a statement saying the aircraft had been detected 75 kilometers (about 46 miles) from its coastline, miles away from standard territorial waters which are typically 12 nautical miles from the coast.

Padrino described the planes as US F-35 fighter jets flying at a speed of 400 knots and an altitude of 35,000 feet. He said they were detected by air defense systems in the Maiquetía flight information region, a large expanse of sky that extends northward over the Caribbean Sea encompassing the entire airspace of Venezuela and beyond into international airspace.

Padrino said the crew of an international airliner flying in the area also reported to Maiquetía air traffic controllers that it had seen the US aircraft.

CNN has reached out to the US Department of Defense for comment and to the Venezuelan Defense Ministry for the exact positions of the flights.

The news comes amid heightened tensions between Washington and Caracas following the deployment of several US warships in the Caribbean, which the US insists is a mission to combat drug trafficking, but Venezuela believes is aimed at regime change.

Recent US strikes have targeted at least four boats, killing more than a dozen suspected drug traffickers, though the US has not provided concrete evidence that those targeted were criminals.

“We had never seen this deployment of aircraft, which we know are stationed in Puerto Rico, of the F-35 class,” Padrino said.


Rifat Rafique Badhan is a
freelancer and a columnist.