The United States says it will designate the so-called Cartel de los Soles, which Washington claims is led by President Nicolás Maduro and senior Venezuelan officials — with absolutely no evidence — as an illegal criminal organization.
In a press release published on Sunday, the U.S. State Department claimed the Venezuelan organization is “responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe.”
The State Department said it will designate the suspected Venezuelan cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), alongside other Latin American drug cartels and “designated FTOs, including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel.”
Cartel de los Soles is an informal term used to describe groups within Venezuela’s armed forces allegedly involved in a wide range of criminal activities.
While President Donald Trump claims he wants to tackle those responsible for trafficking drugs into the United States, experts say Trump has his eyes on Venezuela’s rich resources and is trying to dislodge Maduro to seize Venezuela’s unrivaled energy reserves.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has been the only obstacle to that goal.
On Sunday, Trump hinted that he might hold talks with Maduro.
“We may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out. They would like to talk.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. carried out another lethal strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific over the weekend, killing three people, just as its most advanced aircraft carrier entered the Caribbean.
In past months, the self-proclaimed “president of peace” has ordered U.S. forces to ramp up covert and military operations in Latin America.
At the direction of Trump, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has deployed the military in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
The U.S. Navy announced its most advanced aircraft carrier arrived in the Caribbean on Sunday. The deployment of the USS Gerald R Ford alongside a dozen other navy ships, aircraft, and about 12,000 sailors and marines rounds off the largest military buildup in the region in decades.
The United States carried out a lethal strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific on Saturday, killing three people.
The US Southern Command claimed in a post on social media that “the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics.”
The latest attack was the 21st known one on drug boats by the U.S. military since early September in what it has called a justified effort to disrupt the flow of narcotics into the US. The strikes have killed more than 80 people, according to Pentagon figures.
Lawmakers in Congress, human rights groups, and U.S. allies have raised questions about the legality of the attacks.
IMAGE CREDIT: The US Navy’s Gerald R Ford carrier strike group at an undisclosed location in the Atlantic Sea. (File photo)
[ SOURCE: PRESS TV and NEWS AGENCIES ]
