Two armed Venezuelan F-16 fighter jets flew over the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer Jason Dunham in the southern Caribbean Sea in a show of force on Thursday, a Defense Department official said, in the latest escalation of tensions between the Trump administration and President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
The U.S. warship did not engage, the official said.
In a statement on Thursday night, the Pentagon said: “This highly provocative move was designed to interfere with our counter-narco-terror operations. The cartel running Venezuela is strongly advised not to pursue any further effort to obstruct, deter or interfere with counternarcotics and counterterrorism operations carried out by the U.S. military.”
The flyover, reported earlier by CBS News, took place two days after the United States carried out a deadly military strike on a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean that U.S. officials said was carrying drugs.
President Trump has said that 11 members of the Tren de Aragua gang were killed in the strike. It was unclear whether they were given a chance to surrender.
The Dunham is part of a small armada of warships and surveillance planes that the Pentagon has been amassing in the region in recent weeks as part of a major counternarcotics operation.
Mr. Trump signed a still-secret directive last month instructing the Pentagon to use military force against some Latin American drug cartels that his administration has labeled “terrorist” organizations.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that seizing drug shipments in recent years had not dissuaded cartels and traffickers. “What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” he said.
Mr. Maduro has accused Mr. Rubio of trying to drag Mr. Trump into a bloody war.
Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades.
The post Venezuelan Jets Fly Over U.S. Navy Ship in Show of Force appeared first on New York Times.
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