Online Reporter
United States President Donald Trump has said he is not considering strikes within Venezuela, appearing to contradict his own comments earlier last month, amid a major US military build-up in the region.
The US has now deployed fighter jets, warships and thousands of troops to the Caribbean, with the world’s largest warship, aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford, on its way towards the Venezuelan coast.
When asked by reporters on board Air Force One on Friday if media reports that he was considering strikes within Venezuela were true, Trump answered: “No.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered the same message as he responded to an article in the Miami Herald that said Washington’s forces were poised to hit Venezuela.
“Your ‘sources’ claiming to have ‘knowledge of the situation’ tricked you into writing a fake story,” Rubio said in a post on X.
Trump’s brief response on Friday appeared to contrast with remarks he has made about Venezuela on at least two occasions earlier last month.
The US president last week said he would not “necessarily ask for a declaration of war” to proceed, adding: “I think we are just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. OK? We are going to kill them.”
“Now they (drugs) are coming in by land . . . you know, the land is going to be next,” he added.
The US military has launched a string of strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since early September, killing at least 62 people and destroying 14 boats and a semi-submersible. The Trump administration has said the attacks are targeting alleged drug smuggling but has yet to present any evidence to the public to substantiate its claims.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk decried the attacks “and their mounting human cost” as “unacceptable” in a statement on Friday. — Al Jazeera
