US President Donald Trump is sending 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico as part of his ‘war on drug cartels’, sources familiar with the matter told the AFP news agency and Reuters news agency, as tensions mount with Venezuela over Washington's military build-up in the Caribbean.
The planes will join US warships already deployed to the southern Caribbean, sources said on Friday, as Trump steps up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the United States accuses of leading a drug cartel.
The high-tech F-35 jets are being deployed to an airfield in Puerto Rico, a US Caribbean island territory of more than three million people, the US sources said on condition of anonymity.
On Thursday, Pentagon said two Venezuelan military planes flew near a US Navy vessel in international waters, describing it a "highly provocative" move.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two Venezuelan F-16s flew over the USS Jason Dunham on Thursday.
The Dunham is one of at least seven US warships deployed to the Caribbean, carrying more than 4,500 sailors and Marines.
US Marines and sailors from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit have also been carrying out amphibious training and flight operations in southern Puerto Rico.
US forces on Tuesday blew up an alleged "drug boat" in the Caribbean that Trump claimed belonged to the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organisation he tied to Maduro, killing 11 people.
Maduro has denounced the US build-up as "the greatest threat our continent has seen in the last 100 years."
'Extrajudicial killings'
Declaring his country prepared for "armed struggle in defence of the national territory," Maduro has mobilised Venezuela's military, which numbers around 340,000, and reservists, which he claims exceed eight million.
"If Venezuela were attacked, it would immediately enter a period of armed struggle," Maduro told foreign correspondents.
Tuesday's deadly US attack on what Washington said was a "drug-carrying boat" was a major escalation, as well as an unusual use of the US military for what has historically been a law enforcement issue.
"Venezuela has been very bad, both in terms of drugs and sending some of the worst criminals anywhere in the world into our country," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
There are currently eight US Navy ships involved in counter-narcotics efforts in Latin America: three amphibious assault ships, two destroyers, a cruiser and a littoral combat ship in the Caribbean, and one destroyer in the eastern Pacific, a US defence official said this week on condition of anonymity.
The US Department of Defense — which Trump is set to rebrand as the "Department of War" on Friday — said that two "Maduro regime" aircraft flew near a US vessel on Thursday.
"This highly provocative move was designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations," it said on X.
It did not give further details. Venezuela has 15 F-16 fighter jets purchased from the United States in the 1980s plus a number of Russian fighters and helicopters.
'Congress has not declared war on Venezuela'
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the new aggressive approach towards what Washington calls "narcoterrorist" groups on a trip to Latin America this week.
"What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them," Rubio said in Mexico on Wednesday.
"If you're on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl headed to the United States, you're an immediate threat to the United States."
Caracas accused Washington of committing extrajudicial killings in the attack.
Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, has meanwhile condemned what she called Trump's "lawless" actions in the southern Caribbean.
"Congress has not declared war on Venezuela, or Tren de Aragua, and the mere designation of a group as a terrorist organisation does not give any President carte blanche to ignore Congress’s clear Constitutional authority on matters of war and peace," Omar said in a statement.
US officials have not clearly explained what legal justification was used for Tuesday's air strike on the boat or what drugs were on board.
Trump said on Tuesday, without providing evidence, that the US military had identified the crew of the vessel as members of Tren de Aragua gang.
