The United States has finalised all preparations for a possible ground and air assault inside Venezuela, reports said, citing US Defence officials on Monday.
US forces are rebuilding one of their long-abandoned Cold War-era naval bases in Puerto Rico, close to Venezuela.
Construction at the former Roosevelt Roads base, abandoned in 200,4 began on 17 September, with crews clearing and repaving taxiways for runways, they said.
The base will offer strategic space for equipment, said a US Defence official.
Upgrades are also being carried out at civilian airports in Puerto Rico and St Croix, US Virgin Islands—about 500 miles from Venezuela.
Multiple US sources confirmed that Washington plans to use Puerto Rico facilities to conduct airstrikes inside Caracas.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has alleged that US authorities are planning to force regime change in the country.
“All of these things… are designed to scare the pants off the Maduro regime and the generals around him, with the hope that it will create fissures,” said a senior security fellow at the CSIS.
Experts say that this is the largest military build-up since the 1994 Haiti intervention. (“Operation Uphold Democracy”).
US forces, since early September, have carried out 14 strikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing more than 61 people.
Trump told Congress at the start of the operation that the US was in an undeclared war against the drug cartel gangs.”
Washington has described Nicolas Maduro as “a Narco-terrorist” for his alleged links with the Drug cartel (Cartel de los Soles).
The alleged military build-up began in late August with US warships arriving along with a nuclear submarine, jets, spy planes and their mighty aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford in Caribbean waters.
