A Venezuelan socialist told his supporters this weekend without evidence that U.S. Marines are "likely" to enter his country -- and then he warned that getting back out won't be so easy.
"It is likely that the U.S. Marines enter. It is likely that they enter," Socialist Party Vice President Diosdado Cabello said Saturday at a forum for leftist politicians and activists from across Latin America, citing no proof.
"Their problem," he added, according to a report from Reuters, "will be getting out of Venezuela."
Cabello's remarks came days after a tense run-in between an American surveillance plane and a Venezuelan fighter aircraft in international airspace over the Caribbean Sea. The Venezuelan SU-30 Flanker "aggressively shadowed" a U.S. EP-3 Orion aircraft at an unsafe distance July 19, "jeopardizing the crew and aircraft," according to U.S. Southern Command officials, who posted a video and photos of the incident on social media last week.
Related: Venezuela Hits Out at Alleged US 'Spy Plane' Incursion
Capt. Jose Negrete, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces South, which oversees that service's missions in the Caribbean, Central and South Americas, confirmed that there are no Marines in Venezuela. Any Marines deployed to the region are working with partner nations "on issues of concern" to those countries, he said.
Negrete and officials and U.S. Southern Command did not respond to questions about how many Marines are currently on the South American continent. While small teams of Marines routinely train with partner nations, the numbers are typically in the dozens -- not at the levels required to invade a foreign country.
Tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela have been high since American leaders slammed socialist President Nicolas Maduro's 2018 re-election as illegitimate. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump called Maduro "a Cuban puppet" who has pushed his people into poverty.
The U.S. and others have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as president. Russia has backed Maduro.
When officials with SOUTHCOM shared the video and photos of the aggressive moves by the Venezuelan aircraft earlier this month, the command blamed Russia's "irresponsible military support to Maduro's illegitimate regime."
"[This] underscores Maduro's recklessness [and] irresponsible behavior, which undermines [international] rule of law [and] efforts to counter illicit trafficking," SOUTHCOM said in its post.
Earlier this year, Trump did not rule out military action in Venezuela, telling "Face the Nation" on CBS it remained "an option."
"So many really horrible things have been happening in Venezuela when you look at that country," the commander in chief said. "That was the wealthiest country of all in that part of the world, which is a very important part of the world. And now you look at the poverty and you look at the anguish and you look at the crime and you look at all of the things happening."
-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.
