#latin-america-military-operations

#latin-america-military-operations

Andrew Pritchard initially smuggled cocaine for the UK club scene using hard-sided suitcases packed with concealed drugs and decoy luggage to evade airport security.

Ecuador's Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld confirmed that her country's ambassador to Colombia had been recalled, stating that the criticisms of the Glas case were uncalled for. She described the remarks as a provocation, emphasizing that such messages come out of nowhere.

Sunday's attack brought the death toll to at least 157 people since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls "narcoterrorists" in small vessels in early September. As with most of the military's statements on the more than 40 known strikes in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes.

The Trump adminstration has pledged a renewed focus on Latin America, which it has described as the 'Trump Corollary' to the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine which back then sought to ban European incursions in the Americas. The White House has billed the summit as the founding of the 'Americas Counter Cartel Coalition' which they described as a new military partnership with leaders in the region.

We are advancing alongside our partners in the fight against narcoterrorism. The strikes were conducted in the northeastern province of Sucumbios, situated close to Ecuador's border with Colombia. Helicopters, aircraft, river boats and drones were used to locate and bomb a drug traffickers' training camp in the area.

The 1980s bring revolutionary wars, CIA-backed conflict and the violent birth of a new democratic era. Episode 2: Wars begins with Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution, which promised egalitarian transformation through literacy crusades. But civil war erupted as United States President Ronald Reagan's administration covertly backed the Contra rebels, plunging the nation into turmoil and suffering. Panama transitioned from Omar Torrijos's diplomatic triumphs over the Panama Canal to Manuel Noriega's sinister collaboration with both the CIA and drug cartels.

Non-kinetic effects are military actions that influence or disrupt an adversary's systems without using physical force or causing direct destruction, rather than weapons like missiles or bombs. They often include cyber operations, electronic warfare and influence campaigns. The operation that ousted Maduro from Caracas included cyber effects that targeted radar and internet, as well as the city's power grid, which caused a temporary blackout.

Donald Trump's allegedly ailing health has been the subject of media speculation for months, which analysts have said is interrupting the president's quest to be seen as an unflinching strongman. Salon writer Chauncey DeVega suggested in a recent column that Trump's invasion of Venezuela was a "prime opportunity" for the president to "get his swagger back." But the problem, he said, is that Trump can't hide his clear mental and physical decline.

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued notices to airlines, urging them to exercise caution over Mexico and other Central American countries, as well as Ecuador and Colombia, due to military activities. On Friday, the FAA released a series of advisories that come amid an ongoing US military buildup in the Latin America region, including US military attacks on Venezuela, and US President Donald Trump's warning to Cuba and threats of strikes against drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia,

Brazil plans to send national guard troops to northern Roraima state, which borders Venezuela and has a strong presence of illegal armed groups who traffic drugs and mine illegally on both sides of the international boundary, according to a government decree. In an official decree published on Thursday, the government authorised an unspecified number of National Public Security Force (FNSP) troops to be sent to Pacaraima, as well as Roraima's capital, Boa Vista, about 213km (132 miles) from the border.

On Tuesday, during an extended Cabinet meeting, Colombian President Gustavo Petro denounced two plots that initially drew little attention but would have halted the political agenda in almost any other country. As if downplaying it, Petro claimed that earlier this week someone tried to kill him while he was traveling by helicopter. According to his account, the aircraft had to change course and fly over the ocean for four hours before it could land.

A meeting between two drug traffickers in the Amazon jungle region of Putumayo has become a new lever of pressure for Donald Trump on the governments of Colombia and Venezuela. A U.S. intelligence report reveals that Giovanny Andres Rojas aka Arana, the top leader of the Border Commandos and currently imprisoned in La Picota prison in Bogota, is making illegal deals with the Serbian kingpin Antun Mrdeza, who has been held in Venezuela since 2025.

At the direction of the commander of U.S. Southern Command, Marine Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted three lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations, Southern Command said in the statement, which as has become customary was accompanied by a video showing the boats exploding after being hit by a missile. Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations, it added.

Claude, the AI model developed by Anthropic, was used by the US military during its operation to kidnap Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal revealed on Saturday, a high-profile example of how the US defence department is using artificial intelligence in its operations.