US military flew supersonic B-1 bombers up to the coast of Venezuela

In this photo released by the U.S. Air Force, a Air Force B-1B Lancer bomber takes off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, to fly a mission with two Koku Jieitai (Japan Air Self-Defense Force) F-15s, Sept. 9, 2017. (Senior Airman Jacob Skovo/U.S. Air Force via AP)

The U.S. military flew a pair of supersonic, heavy bombers up to the coast of Venezuela on Thursday, a little over a week after another group of American bombers made a similar journey as part of a training exercise to simulate an attack.

The U.S. military has built up an unusually large force in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off of Venezuela, raising speculation that President Donald Trump could try to topple Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro faces charges of narcoterrorism in the U.S.

Adding to the speculation, the U.S. military since early September has been carrying out lethal strikes on vessels in the waters off Venezuela that Trump says are trafficking drugs.

According to flight tracking data, a pair of B-1 Lancer bombers took off from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas on Thursday and flew through the Caribbean and up to the coast of Venezuela. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, confirmed that a training flight of B-1s took place in the Caribbean.

The B-1 bomber can carry more bombs than any other plane in the U.S. inventory.

A similar flight of slower B-52 Stratofortress bombers was conducted in the region last week. The bombers were joined by Marine Corps F-35B stealth fighter jets -- a squadron is currently based in Puerto Rico -- for what the Pentagon called a “bomber attack demo” in photos online.

When Trump was asked about Thursday’s B-1 flight and if it was meant to ramp up military pressure on Venezuela, he said, “it’s false, but we’re not happy with Venezuela for a lot of reasons. Drugs being one of them.”

The U.S. force in the Caribbean includes eight warships, P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, MQ-9 Reaper drones and an F-35 fighter squadron. A submarine has also been confirmed to be operating in the waters off South America.

Trump on Wednesday said he has the “legal authority” to carry out the strikes on the alleged drug-carrying boats and suggested similar strikes could be done on land.

“We will hit them very hard when they come in by land,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’re totally prepared to do that. And we’ll probably go back to Congress and explain exactly what we’re doing when we come to the land.”

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the military had conducted its ninth strike, killing three people in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It followed a strike Tuesday night, also in the eastern Pacific, that killed two people and brought the overall death toll from the strikes to at least 37.

The latest pair of strikes expanded the Trump administration’s campaign against drug trafficking in South America from the waters of the Caribbean to the eastern Pacific.

Hegseth has drawn a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown.

“Our message to these foreign terrorist organizations is we will treat you like we have treated al-Qaeda,” Hegseth told reporters on Thursday at the White House.

“We will find you, we will map your networks, we will hunt you down, and we will kill you,” he added.