#counter-narcotics

#counter-narcotics

A significant amount of additional firepower is being sent to support President Donald Trump's new drug war. The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, led by the Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier, and its embarked carrier air wing will be diverted from the Mediterranean to the US Southern Command area of responsibility, according to a Friday Pentagon statement. The move marks a notable expansion of US military forces in the region.

Colombia has recalled its ambassador to Washington amid a furious war of words between Colombian president Gustavo Petro and Donald Trump over deadly US strikes on boats in the Caribbean. The row took a sharp turn this weekend when Petro accused the US of murdering a Colombian fisher in an attack on a vessel in its territorial waters. Petro and his administration said the mid-September strike was a direct threat to national sovereignty and that the victim was a lifelong fisherman and a humble

The U.S. Navy is surging eight warships to the Caribbean and Pacific waters near several Central and South American countries, a significant buildup for a region that has rarely seensuch a large presence of U.S. military vessels and a move that has escalated tensions with nearby Venezuela. The ships are part of an "enhanced counter narcotics operation" to carry out drug interdiction missions in Latin America, a defense official told The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, to provide details