B-1 bombers fly over Caribbean in another show of force against Venezuela
Two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers flew a training mission over the Caribbean Sea on Thursday, marking the second time in a week that long-range U.S. bombers have flown over the region, according to two sources familiar with the operation.
The two American bombers took off from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas and headed to the Caribbean where they conducted extensive flight operations in international airspace, according to the sources.
The takeoffs from the bombers' home base were also tracked by aviation enthusiasts using commercially available software to track the aircraft that initially had their transponders activated.
One of the sources characterized Thursday's flights as another show of force similar to the one last week in which three B-52 bombers flew from their base in Louisiana and flew operations about 90 miles north of Venezuela.
That mission was officially characterized by the U.S. Air Force as a training mission.
Asked at a White House event later Thursday, when a reporter asked about whether the U.S. had sent B-1 bombers "near Venezuela" to ramp up military pressure there, President Donald Trump responded, "Not accurate. No. It's false."
The two bomber missions a week apart highlight the growing U.S. military presence in the Caribbean where the Trump administration has said it is in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels.
There are presently 10,000 U.S. military personnel in the Caribbean as part of those operations including personnel aboard eight U.S. Navy ships, 10 F-35 stealth fighters deployed to Puerto Rico, and reconnaissance aircraft including Reaper unmanned drones.
The U.S. military has carried out at least nine airstrikes targeting drug smuggling fast boasts since early September when they first began.
The majority of those airstrikes had been carried out in the Caribbean close to Venezuela, but beginning Tuesday the U.S. military began carrying out airstrikes on similar boats operating in the eastern Pacific west of Central America.
Five individuals whom the Trump administration has labeled as narcoterrorists were killed in two airstrikes in the eastern Pacific bringing to at least 37 the number of persons believed to have been killed in the airstrikes in both that region and the Caribbean.
Last week, two individuals survived an airstrike on a semi-submersible vessel and were brought aboard a U.S. Navy warship and were later repatriated to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador.
Colombia's government has said it will pursue legal action against the person repatriated to Colombia, but Ecuadorean prosecutors said they would not do so citing a lack of evidence.
