The Pentagon on Friday ordered the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Fordaircraft carrierand its strike group to an unidentified location off South America, a dramatic increase in regional combat power that the White House says is aimed at disrupting drug trafficking throughout the Western Hemisphere.

TheUS militaryis sending an aircraft carrier to the waters offSouth America, thePentagonannounced Friday, in the latest escalation of military firepower in a region where theTrumpadministration hasunleashed more deadly strikes in recent daysagainst boats it accuses of carryingdrugs.

Defence SecretaryPete Hegsethordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to the US Southern Command region to bolster US capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States",Pentagonspokesman Sean Parnell said on social media.

The USS Ford, which has five destroyers in its strike group, is now deployed to theMediterranean Sea. One of its destroyers is in the Arabian Sea and another is in theRed Sea, a person familiar with the operation said. As of Friday, the aircraft carrier was in port in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea.

The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, would not say how long it would take for the strike group to arrive in the waters offSouth Americaor if all five destroyers would make the journey.

Deploying an aircraft carrier will surge major additional resources to a region that has already seen an unusually large US military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and the waters offVenezuela. The latest deployment and the quickening pace of the US strikes, including one Friday, raised new speculation about how far the Trump administration may go in operations it says are targeted atdrug trafficking, including whether it could try to topple Venezuelan PresidentNicolas Maduro. He faces charges of narcoterrorism in the US.

There are already more than 6,000 sailors and Marines on eight warships in the region. If the entire USS Ford strike group arrives, that could bring nearly 4,500 more sailors as well as the nine squadrons of aircraft assigned to the carrier.

Complicating the situation is Tropical Storm Melissa, which has been nearly stationary in the central Caribbean with forecasters warning it could soon strengthen into a powerful hurricane.

At least 43 dead in US boat strikes

Hours before Parnell announced the news, Hegseth said the military had conducted the 10th strike on a suspected drug-running boat, leaving six people dead and bringing the death count for the attacks that began in early September to at least 43 people.

Hegseth said on social media that the vessel struck overnight was operated by the Tren de Aragua gang. It was the second time the Trump administration has tied one of its operations to the gang that originated in a Venezuelan prison.

If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treatal Qaeda, Hegseth said in his post. Day or NIGHT, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you.

The strikes have ramped up from one every few weeks when they first began last month to three this week.

Two recent deadly strikeswere carried out in the eastern Pacific Ocean, expanding the area where the military has launched attacks and shifting to where much of the cocaine is smuggled from the worlds largest producers, including Colombia.

Read moreTwo killed by US strike on alleged drug-trafficking boat in Pacific Ocean

Escalating tensions withColombia, the Trump administration imposed sanctions Friday on Colombian PresidentGustavo Petro, his family and a member of his government over accusations of involvement in the global drug trade.

Friday's strike drew parallels to the first announced by the US last month by focusing on Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has designated a foreign terrorist organisation and blamed for being at the root of the violence and drug dealing that plague some cities.

While not mentioning the origin of the latest boat, the Republican administration says at least four of the boats it has hit have come from Venezuela. On Thursday, the US military flew a pair of supersonic heavy bombers up to the coast of Venezuela.

Maduro argues that the US operations are the latest effort to force him out of office.

Maduro on Thursday praised security forces and a civilian militia for defence exercises along some 2,000 kilometres (about 1,200 miles) of coastline to prepare for the possibility of a US attack.

In the span of six hours, 100 percent of all the countrys coastline was covered in real time, with all the equipment and heavy weapons to defend all of Venezuelas coasts if necessary, Maduro said during a government event shown on state television.

The US militarys presence is less about drugs than sending a message to countries in the region to align with US interests, according to Elizabeth Dickinson, the International Crisis Groups senior analyst for the Andes region.

An expression that Im hearing a lot is, Drugs are the excuse and everyone knows that, Dickinson said. And I think that message is very clear in regional capitals. So the messaging here is that the US is intent on pursuing specific objectives. And it will use military force against leaders and countries that dont fall in line.

Hegseths remarks around the strikes have recently begun to draw a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the US declared after theSeptember 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administrations crackdown on drug traffickers.

President Donald Trump this month declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and said the US was in an armed conflict with them, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration after 9/11.

When reporters asked Trump on Thursday whether he would request that Congress issue a declaration of war against the cartels, he said that wasnt the plan.

I think were just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? Were going to kill them, you know? Theyre going to be like, dead, Trump said during a roundtable at the White House.

Lawmakers from both major political parties have expressed concerns about Trump ordering the military actions without receiving authorisation from Congress or providing many details.

Ive never seen anything quite like this before, said Sen. Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, who previously worked in the Pentagon and the State Department, including as an adviser inAfghanistan.

We have no idea how far this is going, how this could potentially bring in, you know, is it going to be boots on the ground? Is it going to be escalatory in a way where we could see us get bogged down for a long time? he asked.

Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, who has long been involved in foreign affairs in the hemisphere, welcomed the escalation. Its about time, he said of Trumps approach.

Trump obviously hates war,Diaz-Balart said, underscoring that these aretargeted operations. I would not want to be in the shoes of any of these narco-cartels, he added.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

Originally published on France24