Illustrative image. (U.S. Air Force photo/Samuel King Jr.)
United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on October 3 announced a fourth “lethal, kinetic strike” on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, accusing the vessel of carrying drugs.
Hegseth shared a video of the strike on the X social network, noting that the boat was targeted close to the coast of Venezuela.
“Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike, and no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation. The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people,” the defense secretary wrote.
“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route. These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!,” he added.
Tensions have been on the rise between Venezuela and the U.S. since August, when the administration of President Donlad Trump doubled the reward for the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to $50 million on drug trafficking charges then deployed a large naval force with thousands of marines close to the country’s shores on a so-called “counter narco-terror operation”.
Trump said 11 people had been killed in a strike against a drug-carrying vessel in the southern Caribbean at the start of September. Later in the month, two separate strikes days apart killed a total of six people.
A memo sent to Congress said that the U.S. government had now decided it was in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels, according to reports from earlier this week. The Trump administration is required by law to report to Congress if it will use military force. Thus, the move suggests it plans to use further military action.
In another sign of nearing escalation, Venezuela said on October 2 that it had detected five U.S. fighter jets flying near its Caribbean coast.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino described the incident as a “provocation” by Washington that posed a threat to national security.
“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 the same day, the Venezuelan government issued a statement saying the aircraft had been detected 75 kilometers from its coastline, far from standard territorial waters which are typically 12 nautical miles, or just over 22 kilometers, from the coast.
Footage that surfaced online later revealed that the Venezuelan military had deployed some of its most capable Russian air defense systems. The footage show a Buk-M2E somewhere along the coast near Caracas, and a Pechora-2M moving on a highway near Maracay in the country’s north. The systems can engage aerial targets with a range of 45 and 35 kilometers, respectively.
Click to see full-size image. (Telegram)
Venezuela’s most capable air defense system with a range up to 200 kilometers, the S-300VM, is yet to be spotted on the move.
The U.S. recent escalation against Venezuela is clearly meant to overthrow the regime in Caracas. While Venezuela has already shown willingness to engage diplomatically with Washington with Maduro even sending a letter to Trump, the country continues to prepare for the worst.
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venezuela government, miltary, armed militia in time of national emergency & martial law need to make sure no oil infrastructure falls in pirates hands & no opposition traitor supporting an illegal invasion of their country is allowed “breathing room” the peoples militias should already be “surveying” their homes & whereabouts. latins arent cowards like arabs,muslims. latins of all faiths & from the worldover will descend on venezuela like killer bees to sting pirates
amen to that.
i think he is referring to “great value obama” aka juan guaido.
let me put my boots on. #vivahugochavez
latins are more courageous than muslims? lmao… did you forget iraq? afghanistan? yemen? palestine? venezuela is a different latin country though! but not even as close as muslims (2 billion and will be the largest soon!) iranian fought with bare bombs in hands against iraq, united states and soviet union! true muslims will never be conquered! from algeria to indonesia! those gay saudis and gulf countries are sheep!
you cant fight the usa like you fight russia. the usa has no problems to kill a city like faludja in iraq and look good in the media while doing so. the usa would have conquered ukraine in three days cause after three days ukraine would have had no cities left no elecricity no communication no nothing and stil look like saints in the world media. maduro failed where chaves succeded to stay under the threshold where the usa would attack.
“””””drug boat””””” bs
indeed they have provided no evidence they were drug boats and we know dead men can’t talk, just the usual us gangsterism by the worlds biggest rogue state.
isn’t it strange how countries with oil resources always get attacked by amerikunts? iraq, libya, syria, iran, venezuela. strange, that.
at this point it’s obvious to even a small child. america is the fourth reich. now that it’s widely known: it will be no different than when people had enough of the roman empire, the catholic church, and the british after that.
uncle sam wading into yet another quagmire… vietnam, iraq afghanistan etc. stuck on stupid.
carry on up the jungle.
southfront, fix your headlines, makes me think you are in the cia payroll with this crap:
venezuela deploys air defenses as u.s. strikes fourth drug boat
should be:
venezuela deploys air defenses as u.s. strikes fourth “alleged” drug boat
looks like it’s run on a tight budget. no frills.
clint, get over your communist self.
venezuela deploys air defenses as u.s. strikes fourth tuna fishing boat
venezuela should also blast to smithereens drug smuggling boats in international waters coming out from guyana, & also declare honest to god they had foolproof intelligence that they exactly knew who & what was on those drug smuggling boats, & they exactly knew where the boats were going, without having to show any hard evidence other than their words. same thing with china to taiwan. what is good for the goose is good for the gander
the smartest thing for russia and china would be to offer venezuela full logistical support. in order to create another war of attrition for the enemies of humanity. the logistics could be tricky but it can be done through south america.
americunts are disgusting inferior immoral species
you communists are the disgusting satan worshipers.
tattooed beach queer pete hegseth says – ‘ headed to america to poison our people’ should read ‘ headed to america to poison our sub standard dumbf*ck burgerland sh*theads’
time to take venezuelan communism out!!!
heheheh
the ussa and israel are the enemies of us all
not forgetting their mates over in the city of london, who cannot be left out. what have they all got in common, besides dual citizenships? 3 corporations rule the world – washington dc – military, city of london – economics, the vatican (jerusalem used to be an outpost of the roman empire). all squat in nations, completely independent of host nations, with their own rules, taxes and laws that follow roman empire ideology.
little black hats?
heghseth is an alcoholic. all related deaths including accidents, disfunctional families, suicides etc. due to alcohol kill more americans than drugs. maybe he should start bombing distilleries, breweries, liquor stores and even bodegas that sell alcohol in the usa first. what a hypocrite.
“drug boats” ! halleluja ! southfront of course think that “muslims” paused newtons laws in north america 😂 bloody murderers, that want more murders are what the nazis are.
isn’t that a war crime, from america? no evidence and no facts. yet, it is allowed to happen, with zero accountability? same with what israel is doing over in the middle east. i have just watched a clip of a video, over on nima dialogue works with larry johnson and col. wilkerson. a jewish man, who lived in iraq, pre-israel (1947). he was discussing how the arab jews lived peacefully in the the arab nations, who were a one way ticket to leave, when a certain nation was being set up.
pt 2 – most declined and then there were 5 terrorist attacks in the jewish quarters of iraq, with 3 of them proven to have been caused by an ashkenazi imposter. in order to frighten the arab jews to move to the newly formed israel. since then, peace in the me was a thing of the past, courtesy of the new settlers, who were no friends of the arab jewish community.
pt 3 – is it a coincidence that the city of london’s intelligence service, the mi5 is now led by the blaise metreweli, grandaughter of an ukrainian nazi, known as the ‘butcher’? constantine dobrowolski, who in 1941 become the nazis’ chief informant in chernihiv, ukraine. she should get on well with the ukrainian far right ambassador to the uk, zaluzhnyi.
pt 4 – why are so many of the children and grandchildren of the national socialist german worker’s party and 30s national communists, serving in positions of power in western governments and institutions? ed miliband, chrystia freeland, donald tusk, merz, von der leyen etc, etc, etc.
radio silence from mainstream media especially knowing who actually control them
uhhh, aren’t you the one who, back in 2016 that was so sure trump was going to make the world great again? i specifically remember how you said he was gonna take care of the biden’s and crush the deep state. where did all that go? i also remember telling you no such thing would happen and said wait and see. well, now we see don’t we? trump is exactly what i said he was. now we know what trump was doing, at least most of us.
yep, hands up i thought trump was going to be a lot different to what he turned out to be. also stated that i munch the popcorn, sup the wine and carry n watching the show. same old script that has been running for centuries and hopefully the finale will not be too long.
it is possible this is just a smokescreen to divert attention from an imminent attack on iran.
with this zionist traitor in charge, anything is possible. just imagine something mossad might do, then realize that trump just had the same idea. a coincidence surely. not. i had the same idea when he was bloviating over his gaza non-deal. ffs, tony blair as governor? might as well have nominated gw…or cheney…or rummy. hell, tramp himself !! if he wasn’t destroying everything he can, he would be hilarious.
where is a drug? false?