AN American warship stacked with 1,600 marines is edging to within striking distance of Venezuela – hours after it was reported Donald Trump is ready to attack at any moment.
Trump has been lining up US ships, jets and thousands of troops in the Caribbean for weeks in his campaign against the dictatorship – with a sense that the climax is approaching.
New satellite images show that one huge military vessel, the USS Iwo Jima, is now patrolling just 124 miles from Venezuela – in posturing that will deeply unsettle President Nicolas Maduro.
It holds more than 1,600 marines who have been practising live-fire drills, and it is capable of launching a rapid amphibious invasion.
Two other USS destroyers have been seen accompanying Iwo Jima, within around 12 miles of each other.
The current position of Iwo Jima means it could be at the Venezuelan shore within five hours, if the order was given.
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Meanwhile, the USS Gravely just completed a four-day stay in Trinidad and Tobago, before departing on Thursday.
Here, US Marines conducted joint exercises with local defence forces – and the operation was decried as an “act of aggression” by Venezuela.
Bolstering the naval forces even further will soon be the USS Gerald R Ford Aircraft carrier – the largest in the world – with three US destroyers alongside it.
The US only has three aircraft carriers at sea at any one time, so moving one to the area is a statement of serious intent.
The Pentagon said the carrier group is joining a southern command centre to “bolster US capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland”.
The Ford-carrier, commissioned in 2017, is capable of hauling up to 90 aircraft and holding more than 5,000 sailors.
The aircraft permanently assigned to the ship include the 18E Super Hornet, the 18G Growler, the 2D Advanced Hawkeye, and the 2A Greyhound, alongside Seahawks.
After those arrivals, 14 percent of the US’s entire naval force will be stationed in the Caribbean, marking a significant build-up of force.
Officially, the US says it is targeting drug trafficking networks which flood the country with fentanyl and other narcotics.
However, there is speculation that Venezuelan military targets are in their sights – with a possible end goal of toppling the regime.
Yesterday, sources told the Miami Herald that Trump could unleash the first airstrikes in “days or even hours”.
The President flatly denied this – but that could simply be a ploy to avoid giving away his plans.
Venezuela’s tyrant President Nicolas Maduro, who Trump accuses of colluding with the “narco-terrorist” cartels, has reportedly turned to Vladimir Putin with a desperate plea for weapons.
He is begging Moscow for defensive radars, aircraft repairs and potentially missiles, according to internal US government documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Maduro is also believed to have reached out to China and Iran for back-up, as he anticipates a showdown with the Americans.
Trump set the tone at the start of this month when he declared the US is in a “non-international armed conflict” with the “terrorist organisations” of Venezuela – among which he numbers the government.
This has given him sweeping wartime powers to strike, kill and detain his new enemy without trial.
He has also been steadily scaling up the military presence in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific – where stealth F-35s, B-52 bombers, Reaper drones, eight warships and even a nuclear-powered submarine are lurking.
Some 10,000 troops, military helicopters and intelligence assets from the CIA are also keeping a close eye on Venezuela.
Special operations forces over there have been rehearsing parachute and seizure drills in the Caribbean – with Pentagon planners reportedly preparing to storm ports and airfields if ordered.
At the same time, the armed forces have been eliminating boats off the coast of Venezuela which it says are loaded with drugs bound for America.
At least 14 precision strikes have been carried out, killing more than 60 people – who the US administration describes as “narco-terrorists”.
Last week, Trump claimed that “drugs coming in by sea are 5 percent of what they were a year ago, so now they’re coming in by land”.
He vowed: “That’s going to be next“, referring to land smuggling routes.
Trump insists the campaign is about “saving lives”, calling Maduro’s Venezuela the “worst abuser” of open borders and a pipeline for drugs.
