The United States is preparing to bomb military installations inside Venezuela at any moment in an escalation against the dictatorial regime of Nicolás Maduro, according to reports this Friday by the Miami Herald and The Wall Street Journal, based on sources close to the Donald Trump administration.

Air strikes could occur “within days or even hours,” the Florida newspaper noted, while the New York media outlet clarified that “the president has not made a final decision on ordering ground bombings.”

The offensive seeks to pressure Maduro to relinquish power, according to officials quoted by the media, who also claim the attack is to dismantle the Cartel of the Suns and Venezuela's drug trafficking networks.

“The potential targets under consideration include ports and airports controlled by the military that are allegedly used to traffic drugs, including naval facilities and airstrips, according to one of the officials,” reported The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, the Miami Herald quoted a source who said that Maduro's time is running out, as now there is more than one general willing to capture and hand him over, although officials declined to clarify whether the Venezuelan leader would be one of the targets of the bombings.

Just on Tuesday, Trump reiterated that he would stop drugs entering the country"by land" after nearly two months of bombing 15 boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean, which have left 61 dead and three survivors since September 1.

“We are finally waging war against the cartels. We are waging a war like you have never seen before, and we are going to win that battle. We are already winning it at sea,” the president declared in a speech to U.S. troops in Japan.

The information about the bombings on land comes out on the same day that the UN accused the US government of “violating international law” with its attacks on ships at sea, stating that the people on board were victims of “extrajudicial executions.”

“These attacks, and their growing human cost, are unacceptable. The United States must put an end to them,” demanded UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, the flagship and most advanced ship in the US fleet, is en route to the Caribbean Sea and could be off the coast of Venezuela in a few hours, increasing international pressure against the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro.

The deployment was officially announced by the US Department of Defense on October 27, which justified the decision as part of the strategy to combat drug trafficking in the Caribbean and strengthen the capacity for military intervention against transnational criminal organizations.

The military operation includes not only the Gerald Ford, but an expanded fleet with assault ships, a submarine, destroyers, and combat aircraft, including F-35B fighters and P-8 patrol planes, already deployed in the region. This is the largest US naval mobilization in the Caribbean since the invasion of Panama in 1989.

This vast naval deployment, which Washington frames under the banner of the fight against drugs, coincides with the escalation of tensions between the United States and the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro.

In recent weeks, the US military has reported the destruction of a dozen vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific (near Venezuela and Colombia), which has increased unrest in the ruling elite of both countries, who accuse Washington of"extrajudicial killings".

Cartel of the Suns

The Cartel of the Suns, according to reports from the U.S. Treasury Department, is composed of high-ranking Venezuelan military officers who have facilitated the shipment of cocaine to the Caribbean and Central America. Its existence has been systematically denied by the Maduro dictatorship, but multiple judicial investigations in the U.S. and Latin America point to it as a key component of Caracas's illicit economy.

The White House deployed warships and nearly 4,500 troops to the region in what the Pentagon described as operations to “disrupt drug trafficking routes” linked to Venezuela. Washington confirmed multiple attacks against drug-laden boats that departed from Venezuelan shores, reinforcing military and diplomatic pressure against the Chavista regime.