{"id":623320,"date":"2025-12-10T02:48:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/623320\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T02:48:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:48:16","slug":"two-us-fighter-jets-circle-gulf-of-venezuela-in-escalation-of-hostilities-us-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/623320\/","title":{"rendered":"Two US fighter jets circle Gulf of Venezuela in escalation of hostilities | US military"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two US fighter jets circled the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, in what appeared to be an escalation of the Trump administration\u2019s ongoing hostilities<\/a> toward the South American country and its leftist leader, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n

Venezuelans and South American media<\/a> followed the flights in real time using websites like FlightRadar24<\/a>, which showed a pair of F\/A-18 Super Hornets flying together into the narrow Gulf of Venezuela for about 40 minutes. The jets flew just north<\/a> of Maracaibo, Venezuela\u2019s most populous city.<\/p>\n

FlightRadar24 described the flights as the site\u2019s most watched in a tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A pair of Navy EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets also flew just north of the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, according to the War Zone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Venezuela claims the gulf as part of its national territory. But the United States has historically challenged Venezuela\u2019s definitions<\/a> of its boundaries, saying they butt into international waters and airspace.<\/p>\n

The Department of Defense played down the development in a statement to the Guardian.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department conducts routine, lawful operations in international airspace, including over the Gulf of Venezuela<\/a>,\u201d a Pentagon official wrote. \u201cWe will continue to fly safely, professionally, and in accordance with international law to protect the homeland, monitor illicit activity, and support stability across the Americas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reported flights come amid rising tensions between the two countries over the Trump administration\u2019s rebranding of drug traffickers as enemy combatants. Trump\u2019s military campaign against accused international drug smugglers has so far killed some 87 people off the coasts of Latin American<\/a> countries.<\/p>\n

Critics view<\/a> those military operations as illegal, amounting to little more than extrajudicial killings. A recent follow-up strike that killed two survivors of a US attack on a suspected narcovessel has led several members of Congress to denounce the defense secretary Pete Hegseth, contending that attacking defenseless targets who present no threat may constitute a war crime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump said Maduro\u2019s \u201cdays are numbered\u201d, in an interview with Politico published Tuesday. He also repeated his vow to extend the military campaign against drug traffickers into Venezuelan territory, saying \u201cwe\u2019re gonna hit \u2019em on land very soon\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two US fighter jets circled the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, in what appeared to be an escalation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-623320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115692994799156753","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}