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WASHINGTON: The US has ordered the deployment of 10 F-35 fighter jets to a Puerto Rico airfield to conduct operations against drug cartels, two sources briefed on the matter said, in a move likely to further inflame tensions in the region.
The advanced fighter jets will be added to an already bristling US military presence in the southern Caribbean as President Donald Trump carries out a campaign pledge to crack down on groups he blames for funneling drugs into the United States.
Friday’s development comes three days after US forces attacked a boat that Trump said was carrying “massive amounts of drugs” from Venezuela, killing 11 people. The strike appeared to set the stage for a sustained military campaign in Latin America.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 10 fighter jets are being sent to conduct operations against designated narco-terrorist organizations operating in the southern Caribbean. The planes should arrive in the area by late next week, they said.
The US has deployed warships in the southern Caribbean in recent weeks, with the aim of carrying out Trump’s crackdown.
Seven US warships and one nuclear-powered fast attack submarine are either in the region or expected to be there soon, carrying more than 4,500 sailors and Marines. US Marines and sailors from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit have been carrying out amphibious training and flight operations in southern Puerto Rico.
The buildup has put pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called “effectively a kingpin of a drug narco state.”
Maduro, at a rare news conference in Caracas on Monday, said the United States is “seeking a regime change through military threat.”
US officials have not said what legal justification was used for Tuesday’s air strike on the boat or what drugs were on board.
Trump said on Tuesday, without providing evidence, that the US military had identified the crew of the vessel as members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which Washington designated a terrorist group in February.

COLOMBO: A passenger bus veered off a road and plunged into a precipice in a mountainous region in Sri Lanka, killing 15 people and injuring 16 others, a police spokesman said Friday.
The accident occurred near the town of Wellawaya, about 280 kilometers (174 miles) east of the capital Colombo, on Thursday night and the bus fell into a roughly 1,000-foot precipice, police spokesman Fredrick Wootler said.
The accident killed 15 people and wounded 16, including five children.
Wootler said an initial police investigation revealed that the driver was driving the bus at high speed and lost control of it, crashing with another vehicle and into guardrails before toppling off the cliff.
At the time of the accident, nearly 30 people were traveling on the bus.
Local television showed footage of the severely damaged bus lying at the bottom of the precipice while soldiers were trying to remove the wreckage.
Deadly bus accidents are common in Sri Lanka, especially in the mountainous regions, often due to reckless driving and poorly maintained and narrow roads.