AGENCIES

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he had deployed 25,000 troops along the Caribbean coast and the border with Colombia amid soaring tensions with US President Donald Trump.

In a message Sunday night on social media Maduro said he had deployed “25,000 men and women from our glorious National Bolivarian Armed Forces” to the frontier with Colombia and the northeast coast, where the country’s biggest oil refineries are situated.

The deployment aimed to ensure “the defense of national sovereignty, the security of the country and the fight for peace,” he added.

He did not expressly refer to Trump, who has cited the need to combat Venezuelan drug traffickers particularly in ordering the biggest naval buildup in the Caribbean in years, reports AFP.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told sailors and Marines on a warship off Puerto Rico on Monday that they were not deployed to the Caribbean for training but instead sent to the “front lines” of a critical counter-narcotics mission.

Hegseth’s remarks came during a surprise visit along with the top US general to Puerto Rico amid escalating tensions with Venezuela.