Venezuela said Thursday that it had detected five US fighter jets flying close to its shores, adding to tensions with Washington, which has ordered a major naval build-up in the region.
In a TV address, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said that Venezuela’s air defenses and the tracking systems of the country’s biggest airport “detected more than five… combat aircraft” which had “dared to approach the Venezuelan coast.”
US President Donald Trump last month dispatched 10 F-35 aircraft to Puerto Rico, a US territory in the Caribbean, as part of the biggest military deployment in the area in over three decades.
He also sent eight warships and a nuclear submarine to the region as part of a stated operation to combat drug trafficking across the Caribbean to the United States.
Venezuela’s left-wing authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro has accused Trump of a covert bid to bring about regime change.
Padrino denounced the alleged US flights near Venezuela as a “provocation” and a “threat to our national security.”
US forces have blown up at least three boats belonging to alleged drug traffickers in recent weeks, killing at least 14 people.
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© Agence France-Presse
