Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro is sleeping in different beds every night amid growing fears of direct US military intervention to oust his regime, according to a report.
Mr Maduro has been moving around and regularly changing phones more since September to avoid Washington locking on to his location as Donald Trump increasingly threatens direct action against his regime, sources close to his government told The New York Times.
He is also said to have expanded his Cuban security detail and drawn in more foreign counterintelligence officers to combat actions by Washington following a massive naval buildup off Venezuela’s shores.
Sources said there is still an atmosphere of tension and concern surrounding the president’s inner circle as Trump shows no sign of backing down.
Mr Maduro, 63, has been careful about appearing at public rallies in recent days, and speculation swirled last week that he may have fled the country altogether before he returned with news of talks with Mr Trump.
The talks appear to have done little to resolve the tension between the two leaders, as Mr Trump warned on Tuesday that his administration could attack accused drug traffickers across Latin America “very soon” in a definitive escalation.
“Anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack,” Mr Trump told reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House, after raising the issue of cocaine being trafficked from Colombia.
“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land, too,” the president told reporters when asked about naval strikes. “The land is much easier. And we know the routes they take.”
Mr Trump’s administration accuses Mr Maduro of facilitating drug trafficking from his country, which he denies. The Venezuelan leader says that the US president is trying to oust him by piling on pressure with a show of force on his border.
The US has sent some 15,000 troops and more than a dozen warships to the region over the last few months, given the moniker “Operation Southern Spear” in November.
Mr Trump’s campaign has faced domestic opposition, but not enough to deter the buildup. Last month, the Senate voted down a resolution that would have prevented strikes on Venezuela without a declaration of war.
Venezuela is now believed to be preparing to mount a guerrilla-style resistance or sow chaos, according to sources and planning documents. Resistance could involve small military units carrying out acts of sabotage and other guerrilla tactics.
US secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, on Tuesday separately addressed reports that the US had struck an alleged drug boat to kill two survivors holding on to the wreckage, an attack that some experts warn could be a war crime.
Mr Hegseth blamed the “fog of war” and said he did not see that there were survivors in the water when the order was given for the second strike.
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