{"id":93843,"date":"2025-08-19T08:12:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T08:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/93843\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T08:12:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T08:12:06","slug":"venezuelas-maduro-to-mobilise-millions-in-militia-over-us-threats-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/93843\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela\u2019s Maduro to mobilise millions in militia over US \u2018threats\u2019 | Conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The move comes after the US doubles the bounty for Maduro\u2019s arrest to $50m and deploys three warships in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has pledged to mobilise more than four million militia fighters in response to new United States \u201cthreats\u201d after Washington raised a reward for his arrest and launched new antidrug operations in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis week, I will activate a special plan with more than 4.5 million militiamen to ensure coverage of the entire national territory \u2013 militias that are prepared, activated and armed,\u201d Maduro said in a televised address on Monday.<\/p>\n

Venezuela\u2019s militia was created by former President Hugo Chavez and is officially said to have about five million members although analysts suggested the real figure is lower. The country\u2019s total population is about 30 million.<\/p>\n

Maduro denounced the \u201cextravagant, bizarre and outlandish threats\u201d from Washington. His comments came after US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration doubled its reward<\/a> for his arrest to $50m. It accuses him of leading a cocaine smuggling network known as the Cartel de los Soles.<\/p>\n

The US government, which refuses to recognise Maduro\u2019s last two election victories<\/a>, recently imposed new sanctions on both his administration and the alleged cartel. The US has not provided any evidence linking Maduro to drug cartels.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the US military has deployed three US guided-missile destroyers to the southern Caribbean as part of a broader operation against Latin American drug cartels.<\/p>\n

The USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham and USS Sampson are expected to arrive off Venezuela\u2019s coast within days, according to officials briefed on the plan, the Reuters news agency reported. About 4,000 sailors and Marines are to join the deployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also deployed throughout the Caribbean \u2026 in our sea, our property, Venezuelan territory,\u201d Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said.<\/p>\n

Maduro urged his political base to expand worker and peasant militias and promised to arm them with \u201crifles and missiles\u201d to defend the country\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Despite the mounting pressure, the Venezuelan leader expressed gratitude for international voices that have spoken against the US stance, dismissing Washington\u2019s rhetoric as a \u201crotten refrain\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum this month rejected US allegations linking Maduro to Mexico\u2019s Sinaloa Cartel, saying her government had no evidence<\/a> of such ties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The move comes after the US doubles the bounty for Maduro\u2019s arrest to $50m and deploys three warships…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1127,2605,3140,4379,3,18231,111,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24,18232],"class_list":{"0":"post-93843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-conflict","10":"tag-drugs","11":"tag-latin-america","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-nicolas-maduro","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-us-canada","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-venezuela"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}