Illustrative image. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Joshua Hastings)
United States Air Force bombers flew again over the Caribbean Sea as President Donald Trump renewed threats of land operations against drug cartels in Venezuela and President Nicolas Maduro announced the deployment of “thousands” of air defenses across the country.
Tensions have been on the rise between Venezuela and the U.S. since August, when the Trump administration doubled the reward for the arrest of Maduro to $50 million on drug trafficking charges then deployed a naval force with thousands of marines close to the country’s shores on a so-called “counter narco-terror operation”.
Earlier this month, a trio of U.S. Air Force’s B-52 bombers were tracked over the Caribbean close to Venezuela in an apparent show of force.
Bombers were spotted again close to Venezuela on October 23, according to Online flight tracking data. Two B-1 bombers departing Dyess Air Force Base in Texas. KC-135 tankers were also tracked leaving MacDill Air Force Base in Florida some 90 minutes later. Soon after, what appeared to be B-1s, using the callsigns BARB21 and BARB22, were subsequently tracked flying near Venezuela.
The available online data suggest that the bombers may have come within around 80 kilometers of the country’s coast, and even closer to the Los Testigos islands.
Click to see full-size image. (Telegram)
Click to see full-size image. (Telegram)
The presence of an RC-135 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, most likely a RC-135V/W Rivet Joints, as well as a WC-130J weather reconnaissance aircraft was also reported close to Venezuela, based on flight tracking data and publicly available air traffic control audio.
In addition, a U.S. Air Force’s E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) aircraft was tracked flying in the general direction of Puerto Rico.
Click to see full-size image. (Telegram)
When asked about the bombers later during a press conference in the White House, Trump denied that such a flight took place.
“No, it’s not accurate. It’s false,” Trump told reporters. “But we’re not happy with Venezuela for a lot of reasons.”
During the same press conference, Trump insisted that he could continue to launch strikes against alleged drug traffickers abroad without Congress first passing an official declaration of war.
“I’m not going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” he said. “I think we’re just doing to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them, you know, they’re going to be like, dead.”
He suggested that his administration would soon begin targeting those deemed as cartel members within countries like Venezuela, in addition to continuing to strike alleged drug boats in international waters.
Trump said, however, that he would notify Congress first before beginning any operations on “land,” but contended that the plan would not face any pushback from lawmakers.
Around the same time, the Southern Command released a video showing some of the forces recently deployed near Venezuela to “to disrupt illicit drug trafficking.”
Earlier in the day, Maduro announced that Venezuela had deployed 5,000 Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles in “key air defense positions” across the country.
“Any military force in the world knows the power of the Igla-S and Venezuela has no less than 5,000” of them, Maduro said during an event with military personnel broadcast by Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
He said that the missiles, light enough to be carried by a single soldier, had been deployed “even in the last mountain, the last town, and the last city of the territory.”
The Igla-S is among the most advanced man-portable air defense systems available on the market today. Compared to older variants, the Igla-S has a longer range, reportedly up to six kilometers, a jamming-resistant infrared seeker and a significantly larger warhead.
Of course, Venezuela possesses even more capable air defense systems, which were also purchased from Russia, including the long-range S-300VM, in addition to the medium-range Buk-M2E and S-125 Pechora-2M. All of these systems have been already deployed, with reports indicating that most of them are protecting Caracas.
Recent developments indicate that the U.S. is finalizing preparations for an attack on Venezuela. While Trump’s latest remarks indicate that the U.S. will only target drug cartels, a clash with the country’s military seems inevitable. The wider goal remains, of course, changing the regime in the country, which possesses the world’s largest oil reserves.
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americunts are morally diseased lgbt inferior species
great how stupid americans can be, and how easy they forget the truth!, the all american fentanyl scandals was created by american pharmaceutical companies! of course then the doctors who prescribed the drug! and you idiots blame china! hysterical! let’s hope not to many american sons require to die to remember colonel oliver north and his cia access to american drug suppliers
another (((doctor’s plot.)))
they aren’t doctors they aren’t bankers they aren’t politicians ,they’re private persons who shun attention and know how to utilise human resources effectively .
hahaha the biggest influencer over american legislation that set thx pharmacists up to get paid 1500 dollars cash i think it was for every patient that they got addicted was the moral authority for rule of law who obama told you us the pope .in those words too google it .they got bonuses for every deceased too according to google .x for adducts x plus for deceased ,something like that it was no secret then
and the first freemasonry lodge was in the city ,that is divided into three not egypt israel america ,but the city .
venezuela needs powerful allies. it must not stand alone against the us empire.
unfortunately, history has shown that decent people are usually very slow to actually take up arms, and only really band together at the very last minute. venezuela should prepare for invasion and occupation and a lengthy guerilla war.
yes, very true. and they should align themselves very closely to china & northkorea immediately, make large longterm deals on oil, gold etc. in exchange for chinese weapons, air defence systems, drones etc. china – together with nk – is the only power that is now relatively free to do things geopolitical. iran is under war threat, russia is in war already. so china and nk are the ones venezuela needs to align to as close and quick as possible.
hahaha .there’s been many emperor’s ,chinese japanese ,the oldest actually , persian roman even victoria was empress of india .there’s not been any american emperor’s or empires england only appeared to surrender it’s indian empire around ww2 when everything had to look democratic ..
pussy @ss lgbt uncle sam soldiers.
same old, same old. trump and his lying crap. it’s the only thing keeping his cult together, a cult of delusional liars, it’s the only thing they believe in…until his crap hits their gov check. then it’s an all different story. then they never wanted any of this…for them, that is. screw everyone else. of course, there is a silver lining for tramp though isn’t there? no one is talking about epstein are they? the peace idiot is bringing yet another war.
try a hearing aid so much for your rubbish
venezuelan anustretched by usa again…heheheh
i support ukraine only because epstein has video of me raping children, and i am really scared he will publish the video featuring your favourite president, me, hehehehehe
time that putin leave to play the good cop and supply venezuela with weapons such as pantsir air defense, geran drones, lancet and fiber optic fpv drones, kornet atgm…
iglas aren’t gonna cut it. venezuela needs to prepare for a guerilla war. continuity of government, weapons caches, etc.
yes weapon caches everywhere like saddam prepared for war plus tunnels in jungle & near cities, like the vietcong did. maduro needs be quick now & start training programms for mio of its people in guerilla warfare.and have himself in hideout somewhere in jungle down the earth, before “us decapitation strikes” start targeting him.
if us really invades venezuela & sinks in quagmire there like in iraq or resp. vietnam, that will also help ru – because no us weapons to ukr anymore then cause us will then need most of them for itself.
it is obvious that washington and the judeo-masonic crime syndicate want to replace russian oil in europe with venezuelan oil. this is their strategy against brics
yes, true but there s another more important reason. has more to do with iran. israel wants us to finish iran off in new war. iran will then close strait of hormuz sending oil-prices skyrocketing and thereby crush the global market system. to prevent that us wants to capture venezuela with its large oil & gold reserves in before, so that they have enough oil and cash-value resp. teflon-proof us-economy, that will go unharmed by irans strait of hormuz closure.
maduro should remember the usa actually defeated granada. the matter should be settled by a flatulence contest between him and trump, to be judged by bibi
i presume venezuela doesn’t have missiles to hit us. wonder if putin has threatened to provide them if us sends tomahawks to ukraine.