Donald Trump could launch another daring military operation against Venezuela, this time a lot closer to home, by seizing a runaway oil tanker just over 500 miles from Northern Ireland.
The Bella 1 tanker managed to evade the U.S. blockade set up in the Caribbean Sea in December and has since been spotted in the North Atlantic, off of Ireland’s west coast.
In recent days, flight tracking data appears to show American military aircraft operating out of the RAF’s Mildenhall airbase, in Suffolk, to deduce the whereabouts of the sanctioned vessel. These aircraft have been joined by RAF Typhoon fighter jets, aided by KC2 aerial refuelling tankers, to help locate the tanker.
This image posted on US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account on January 3, 2026, shows Venezuela’s captured President Nicolas Maduro -Credit:US President Donald Trump’s TRUT