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Venezuela’s crisis is spilling across the border into Colombia as Marxist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries recruit migrants to strengthen their ranks, according to five Colombian military commanders.
Violence still simmers in Colombia despite a 2016 peace deal with leftist FARC rebels, meant to end five decades of conflict. Dissident FARC fighters, the rebel National Liberation Army (ELN), right-wing paramilitaries and drug-trafficking gangs are battling each other and the military.
General Francisco Yanez, high command of Venezuela’s air force, said he now recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim head-of-state, according to media reports Saturday.
In a video circulating on Twitter on Saturday, Yanez said most of the armed forces have already disavowed Maduro, who claims he is victim of a coup directed by the U.S.
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president in a defiant speech Wednesday before masses of anti-government demonstrators who took to the streets to demand President Nicolas Maduro’s removal — a bold move that was immediately recognized by the Trump administration and a growing number of other Western nations.
President Donald Trump called on Maduro to resign and said the U.S. would use the “full weight” of its economic and diplomatic power to push for the restoration of Venezuela’s democracy. Canada as well as Brazil, Colombia and several other Latin American nations followed suit in throwing their support behind Guaido.
The Trump administration is considering a “significant drawdown” of U.S. troops in Afghanistan that could begin in the coming weeks, The Wall Street Journal reports.
An official told the newspaper more than 7,000 troops will begin to return home in the coming weeks in the “first stage of a phased drawdown” that could take “many months.”
President Donald Trump has begun withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria, the White House announced Wednesday, declaring victory over Islamic State fighters in the country despite ongoing skirmishes and concerns from others in Washington that the terrorist group might mount a comeback.