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CARACAS: Venezuela on Friday accused the United States of waging an “undeclared war” in the Caribbean and called for a UN probe of American strikes that have killed over a dozen alleged drug traffickers on boats in recent weeks.
Washington has deployed warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 fighters sent to Puerto Rico in what it calls an anti-drug operation.
“It is an undeclared war, and you can already see how people, whether or not they are drug traffickers, have been executed in the Caribbean Sea. Executed without the right to a defense,” Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said as he attended a military exercise in response to the US “threat.”
His remarks came just hours before US President Donald Trump announced another military strike on a boat, claiming three more alleged “narcoterrorists” were killed, bringing the total number of deaths in recent weeks to 17.
He did not say when the attack took place, and only specified that it occurred in the US Southern Command area of responsibility, which includes Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.
The strikes have prompted debate over the legality of the killings, with drug trafficking itself not a capital offense under US law.
Washington has also not provided specific details to back up its claims that the boats targeted have actually been trafficking drugs.
Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab claimed that “the use of missiles and nuclear weapons to murder defenseless fishermen on a small boat are crimes against humanity that must be investigated by the UN.”
The biggest US naval deployment in the Caribbean in decades has stoked fears the United States is planning to attack Venezuelan territory.
On Wednesday, Venezuela launched three days of military exercises on its Caribbean island of La Orchila in response to the perceived threat from a US flotilla of seven ships and a nuclear-powered submarine.
La Orchila is close to the area where the United States intercepted and held a Venezuelan fishing vessel for eight hours over the weekend.

‘Imperial plan’

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the United States does not recognize as legitimate and accuses of running a drug cartel, has urged citizens to join militia training to “defend the homeland.”
Late Thursday, he announced that troops will provide residents of low-income neighborhoods with weapons training.
Maduro, for whom Washington has issued a $50 million bounty on drug trafficking charges, suspects the Trump administration of planning an invasion in pursuit.
Trump had said on Tuesday that US forces “knocked off” three boats crossing the Caribbean, but Washington only provided details and video footage of two of the strikes.
Maduro accused the United States of hatching “an imperial plan for regime change and to impose a US puppet government... to come and steal our oil.”
He has repeatedly vowed Caracas will exercise its “legitimate right to defend itself” against US aggression.
Opposition figure Henrique Capriles, a two-time presidential candidate and staunch Maduro critic, said Friday he would not support any US invasion.
“I continue to believe that the solution is not military, but political,” he said, adding that Trump’s actions were counterproductive and “entrenching those in power.”
He called for the release of nearly a thousand dissidents locked up under Maduro, and for the Venezuelan government to show goodwill in foreign relations.

WASHINGTON: A federal prosecutor resigned Friday after reportedly facing pressure over investigations into two of Donald Trump’s political foes and hours after the US president called for his exit.
Erik Siebert, US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, told staff of his resignations via an email, the New York Times and other US media outlets reported.
The move came just hours after Trump told reporters in the Oval Office “I want him out” in response to a question about firing him.
Siebert had been under pressure to prosecute two of Trump’s political adversaries, former FBI director James Comey — whom Trump fired in 2017 — and New York Attorney General Leticia James, the Times reported, saying that some officials in the administration had argued for him to keep his position.
The federal prosecutor had recently told Justice Department leadership he was declining to prosecute Comey over allegations he lied to Congress, and that there was insufficient evidence to charge James with mortgage fraud, officials familiar with the matter told the Washington Post.
Former FBI chief Comey was fired while leading a probe into whether any members of the Trump campaign had colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 presidential vote, and has been a vocal critic of the Republican president.
James, as New York’s state prosecutor, brought a $464 million case against Trump, alleging he and his company had unlawfully inflated his wealth and manipulated the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.
She, like several other Democratic officials, has been accused by a close Trump ally, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, of falsifying documents on mortgage applications.
Asked about the case against James on Friday, Trump said: “It looks to me like she’s really guilty of something, but I really don’t know.”
Siebert, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute and a former Washington police officer, led a team of approximately 300 prosecutors in a jurisdiction that often handles major cases related to national security.