CARACAS (Reuters) -Venezuela pledged on Sunday to sharply boost troops in coastal states to tackle drug trafficking – a move that comes after the U.S. ordered the deployment of an additional 10 fighter jets to Puerto Rico to carry out operations against drug cartels.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered more troops in the Guajira region of Zulia state and the Paraguana peninsula in Falcon, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said, adding that the area constituted “a drug trafficking route”.
The military’s presence on the island of Nueva Esparta and in the states of Sucre and Delta Amacuro will also be expanded. Some 25,000 troops are set to be deployed, up from the 10,000 which have been deployed in the states of Zulia and Tachira that border Colombia, he said.
“No one is going to come and do the work for us. No one is going to step on this land and do what we’re supposed to do,” Padrino said in a video uploaded to social media.
Tensions between Venezuela and the U.S. have escalated in the wake of President Donald Trump’s new approach to fighting the war on illegal narcotics.
The deployment of the jets adds to a U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean, and comes after a U.S. military strike last week that killed 11 people and sank a boat from Venezuela which Trump said was transporting drugs.
Maduro has accused the U.S. of seeking a regime change.
Trump said on Friday that the United States is not talking about a regime change, but compared the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in overdoses to war dead, as he sought to justify the muscular military activity in the Caribbean.
The U.S. president is weighing options for further strikes, including potentially attacking suspected drug cartel targets inside Venezuela, CNN reported on Friday, citing multiple sources briefed on the administration’s plans. Such a strike would mark a major escalation.
(Reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Writing by Stefanie Eschenbacher; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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