CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday ordered military exercises in the country’s biggest shantytowns after US forces blew up another boat allegedly carrying drugs from the Caribbean country.
US President Donald Trump said six “narcoterrorists” were killed in the strike on the vessel in international waters near Venezuela, bringing to at least 27 people the number killed in such attacks since early September.
Trump has also deployed eight warships, a nuclear-power submarine and fighter jets to the region as part of what he has presented as an operation to combat drug smuggling into the United States.
Maduro has accused Washington of plotting regime change.
In a message on the Telegram social network, Maduro said he was mobilizing the military, police and a civilian militia to defend Venezuela’s “mountains, coasts, schools, hospitals, factories and markets.”
State television showed images of armoured vehicles deploying in the sprawling low-income Caracas suburb of Petare, a traditional stronghold of socialist support.
Military exercises will also take place in Miranda state, which neighbours Caracas.
He said the deployments aim to “win the peace.”
Trump accuses Maduro of heading a drug cartel — charges Maduro denies.
The US Justice Department in August doubled a bounty for information leading to Maduro’s capture to $50 million.
Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said Wednesday the United States was scheming to “rob” Venezuela, a once wealthy petro-state, “of its immense natural resources.”
The pressure on Maduro inched higher last week when US-backed opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for leading peaceful resistance to his 12-year rule.
