Trump admin to deploy 10 F-35 jets to Puerto Rico to combat drug cartels: report

Sources told Reuters that the 10 jets are set to arrive in Puerto Rico late next week, and are being sent to the region to conduct operations against narco-terrorist organizations operating in the southern Caribbean.

On Tuesday, Trump announced that US forces carried out a strike that destroyed a vessel carrying narcotics from Venezuela. Trump said that forces "conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere."

"The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!"

In the wake of the strike, the Pentagon accused Venezuela of undertaking a "highly provocative" flight over a US Navy warship on Thursday. A US official told the outlet that two Venezuelan F-16s flew over the USS Jason Dunham, which is one of at least seven US warships in the Caribbean.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday that the US is "seeking a regime change through military threat," per Newsweek. "In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defense of Venezuela." He called the US deployment to the region "an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat."