Two US F-18 fighter jets entered Venezuelan airspace over the waters of the Gulf of Venezuela for about 40 minutes on Tuesday, as shown by the aviation tracking service Flightradar24. This is a new move that contributes to increasing Washington's pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro. The incursion took place around 12:00 local time (16:00 GMT) in an area of the gulf about 160 kilometers northeast of Maracaibo, Venezuela's second most populous city. The two aircraft, identified as two F-18 F-model variants, which are two-seaters, made several passes in a spiral pattern before flying north to a point located about 50 kilometers west of Aruba, where the USS Gerald Ford, the largest and most sophisticated in the US, is presumed to be. The Pentagon sent the ship a few weeks ago, which joined a huge contingent that Washington has maintained in the southern Caribbean since the end of summer, and it represents its largest deployment in the region in decades. The intrusion into Venezuelan airspace occurred today despite the risk that Caracas might employ its Russian-made anti-aircraft batteries. The fighter jets' flight is part of Operation Southern Spear, under which the Donald Trump government decided to deploy about 15,000 troops in waters near Venezuela, arguing that it is an anti-drug operation. At the same time, Washington accuses Maduro and much of his Venezuelan government and military leadership of leading the Cartel of the Suns, an organization whose existence the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) barely revealed during Trump's term. Caracas, for its part, insists that the deployment is nothing more than a pressure campaign to force a government change in the Caribbean country.
