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US surveillance and reconnaissance flights off the coast of Cuba have surged in recent months as President Donald Trump has issued increasingly belligerent threats to seize the island nation by force.

CNN reported Sunday that the U.S. Navy and Air Force have conducted more than two dozen surveillance flights — mostly of them near Havana and Santiago de Cuba, the country’s largest cities — since early February, after the Trump administration invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president. The outlet noted that “similar patterns, in which ramped-up rhetoric by the Trump administration coincided with an uptick in publicly visible surveillance flights, occurred in the lead-up to U.S. military operations in both Venezuela and Iran.”

“The flights are notable not only for their proximity to the coast, which puts them well within range of gathering intelligence, but for the suddenness of their appearance — prior to February, such publicly visible flights were exceedingly rare in this area — and for their timing,” CNN reported.

CNN published its story days after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced new sanctions targeting a........

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