Two US fighter jets circled the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, in what appeared to be an escalation of the Trump administration’s ongoing hostilities toward the South American country and its leftist leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuelans and South American media followed the flights in real time using websites like FlightRadar24, which showed a pair of F/A-18 Super Hornets flying together into the narrow Gulf of Venezuela for about 40 minutes. The jets flew just north of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s most populous city.

FlightRadar24 described the flights as the site’s most watched in a tweet.

A pair of Navy EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets also flew just north of the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, according to the War Zone.

Venezuela claims the gulf as part of its national territory. But the United States has historically challenged Venezuela’s definitions of its boundaries, saying they butt into international waters and airspace.

The Department of Defense played down the development in a statement to the Guardian.

“The Department conducts routine, lawful operations in international airspace, including over the Gulf of Venezuela,” a Pentagon official wrote. “We will continue to fly safely, professionally, and in accordance with international law to protect the homeland, monitor illicit activity, and support stability across the Americas.”

The reported flights come amid rising tensions between the two countries over the Trump administration’s rebranding of drug traffickers as enemy combatants. Trump’s military campaign against accused international drug smugglers has so far killed some 87 people off the coasts of Latin American countries.

Critics view those military operations as illegal, amounting to little more than extrajudicial killings. A recent follow-up strike that killed two survivors of a US attack on a suspected narcovessel has led several members of Congress to denounce the defense secretary Pete Hegseth, contending that attacking defenseless targets who present no threat may constitute a war crime.

Trump said Maduro’s “days are numbered”, in an interview with Politico published Tuesday. He also repeated his vow to extend the military campaign against drug traffickers into Venezuelan territory, saying “we’re gonna hit ’em on land very soon”.