Tensions between the US and Venezuela escalated on Thursday after a US military strike on a small boat in the Caribbean killed six people. Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, Samuel Moncada, condemned the action as “a new set of extrajudicial executions” and called on the UN Security Council to investigate what he called a pattern of lethal force.
Read also | Trump said a US attack on a drug-trafficking ship near Venezuela killed six people
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump called Nicolás Maduro and his government “illegitimate”, signaling a hardened stance.
The Trump administration has increasingly hinted at military action as a means of ousting Maduro.
However, the White House rejected such claims.
The US has justified the strikes by labeling the targets as suspected drug traffickers and treating them as illegal combatants. But Democrats say the actions violate both U.S. and international law, while even some Republicans have called for more transparency about the legal basis of the operations.
Read also | Trump confirmed that the CIA was conducting “covert operations” inside Venezuela
The US began building up its naval forces in the Caribbean earlier this year in an unprecedented manner not seen in recent memory.
“The United States is overseeing a seismic realignment of defense priorities and assets in the Western Hemisphere,” said a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, DC, AP reported.
It noted that the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico provided the “lion’s share of such infrastructure” as the U.S. military searches for airports and ports in the Caribbean region as fears of strikes grow.
“The administration’s declaration of war on drug cartels has raised a number of legal, ethical and moral questions, and while the declaration of a state of armed conflict has provided some legal basis, it already faces tough domestic scrutiny,” the center said in its report.
Trump defends strikes
Asked at the White House on Wednesday why the U.S. Coast Guard isn’t using the Coast Guard to stop Venezuelan vessels and seize any drugs, Trump said: “We’ve been doing it for 30 years and it’s completely ineffective.”
The president has also suggested that the US may attack targets inside Venezuela, which would significantly raise tensions and legal stakes. So far, the attacks have occurred in international waters outside the jurisdiction of any individual country, the AP reported.
“By sea, we’ve almost completely stopped it,” Trump said of the flow of drugs. “Now we’re going to stop it on the ground.
Trump was also asked about a New York Times report that he authorized a covert CIA operation in Venezuela.
We almost completely stopped at the sea. Now let’s stop it on the ground.
Trump, a fierce critic of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq that toppled the government of Saddam Hussein, declined to say whether he had given the CIA the authority to remove Maduro, saying it would be “ridiculous” to answer, the AP reported.
(With input from agencies)
