Trump weighs strikes targeting cartels inside Venezuela, CNN reports

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump is weighing options for carrying out military strikes targeting drug cartels operating inside Venezuela, including possible strikes within the country, CNN reported on Friday, citing multiple sources.

A strike inside Venezuela would mark a dramatic escalation in U.S. tensions with the South American country.

Earlier in the week, the U.S. military struck a boat from Venezuela in the southern Caribbean, leaving 11 people dead, because, according to Trump, the vessel was transporting illegal narcotics.

The strike was just the beginning of a much larger effort to rid the region of narcotics trafficking and potentially dislodge Venezuela's leftist president, Nicolas Maduro, from power, CNN reported.

Neither the White House nor the Venezuelan communications ministry responded to separate requests for comment from Reuters.

Asked on Friday if the U.S. was eyeing a regime change in Venezuela, Trump told reporters: "We're not talking about that, but we are talking about the fact that you had an election which was a very strange election, to put it mildly."

Maduro later on Friday called on the U.S. to respect his country's sovereignty. "The government of the United States should abandon its plan of violent regime change in Venezuela and in all of Latin America and respect sovereignty, the right to peace, to independence," he said.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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