The Pentagon announced this Friday the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest and most advanced in the US fleet, in the Caribbean Sea, in the middle of the rising tensions with Venezuela.
The measure is announced in the middle of a new peak of tension with Venezuela after a series of US military attacks against vessels who, according to Washington, were transporting drugs.
In that sense, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, instructed the sending of the aircraft carrier and its attack group to the Southern Command area of responsibility, he said. EFE.
He said it was “in support of the president’s directive to dismantle transnational criminal organizations,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
The US and the growing tensions with Venezuela
According to Parnell, The deployment “will strengthen the United States’ ability to detect, monitor and dismantle illicit actors and activities.” that compromise the security and prosperity of the United States territory.”
The Gerald Ford thus joins the contingent already active since the summer in the Caribbean, which includes three amphibious ships, F-35B combat aircraft, P-8 patrol aircraft and MQ-9 drones, which operate from bases in Puerto Rico.
During the last weeks, The Donald Trump Administration has intensified its operations in the region.
The Pentagon acknowledged having destroyed a dozen vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific, some near the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia, in attacks that left several dead and that have been denounced by both governments as “extrajudicial executions.”
This same Friday, Hegseth confirmed that The US Army sank a new boat that, it said, was operated by the Tren de Aragua criminal gangleaving six dead whom he described as “narcoterrorists.”
Caracas responds with military exercises
In that scenario, President Nicolás Maduro announced the deployment of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) and militiamen throughout the country’s coastfrom the state of Zulia to Sucre, in an operation that will last 72 hours.
“This exercise will continue because now all the points must be established,” declared Maduro in an event broadcast on state television.
The president assured that he had given the order “to activate all military equipment immediately” in the face of what he described as a direct threat to Venezuelan sovereignty.
The Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, specified that the maneuvers include aerial reconnaissance, amphibious operations and coastal surveillance, as well as exercises with drones and patrols in strategic areas of the country.
“No attempt at destabilization will pass”warned the general-in-chief.
