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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 9 Jan 20269 Jan 2026<\/p>\n
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The United States military has seized another oil tanker in the Caribbean, as it continues to target vessels sanctioned by Washington in its pressure campaign against Venezuela.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Friday, the US military Southern Command said its forces had \u201capprehended\u201d the Olina tanker \u201cwithout incident\u201d.<\/p>\n
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It did not say why the tanker was targeted or offer further details on alleged violations. The Wall Street Journal reported the tanker had previously been sanctioned by Washington for transporting Russian oil.<\/p>\n
The operation comes two days after US forces seized two oil tankers, including the Russian flagged Marinera oil tanker, originally known as the Bella-1.<\/p>\n
The US Department of Justice has since said it was investigating the crew of the ship, which was seized in the northern Atlantic, for failing to comply with Coast Guard orders and would pursue charges.<\/p>\n
Russia has decried the seizure as a \u201cgross violation\u201d of international maritime law and called on the US to release the crew.<\/p>\n
Since US military forces abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, Washington has vowed to maintain its blockade on sanctioned oil tankers. It has also called on Venezuela to staunch its ties with Russia and China.<\/p>\n
United States President Donald Trump has said the operation against Maduro, which has been roundly condemned as a flagrant violation of international law, as well as the continued sanctions and military pressure is aimed at opening the country\u2019s vast oil reserves to US companies.<\/p>\n
He was set to meet with oil and gas executives at the White House later Friday.<\/p>\n
The US seized another tanker in the Caribbean earlier this week, the M Sophia, which the military described as a \u201cstateless\u201d vessel. Panama later said the ship\u2019s flag had been cancelled by the country last year.<\/p>\n
US forces had previously seized the Skipper tanker and the Centuries vessel in December.<\/p>\n
That month, four UN experts said the US had no \u201cright to enforce unilateral sanctions through an armed blockade\u201d. It said the blockade constituted an \u201cillegal armed aggression\u201d under international law.<\/p>\n
A group of UN experts have more recently said that the Trump administration\u2019s plan to indefinitely control Venezuela\u2019s oil industry represents a violation of its citizens right to self determination.<\/p>\n
Early on Friday, Trump said the US and Venezuela were \u201cworking well together, especially as it pertains to rebuilding, in a much bigger, better, and more modern form, their oil and gas infrastructure\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of this cooperation, I have cancelled the previously expected second Wave of Attacks,\u201d he said, adding US military ships would remain deployed to the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Operation comes days after US seized Russian-flagged tanker; US vows to continue blockade following Maduro abduction. Published On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[32,3274,12,37887,49,978,286,199299,659,8518],"class_list":{"0":"post-684656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-latin-america","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-nicolas-maduro","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-us-canada","15":"tag-us-venezuela-tensions","16":"tag-usa","17":"tag-venezuela"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115865644097516870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684656","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=684656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}