Colombian president ready to 'take up arms' in face of Trump threats

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Monday he would "take up arms" in response to threats from US President Donald Trump, after the Delta Force-led operation resulted in the capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro over the weekend.

Petro, a former guerrilla fighter who has faced months of harsh comments from Trump, wrote on X: "I swore not to touch a weapon again ... but for the homeland I will take up arms again."

Trump said over the weekend that Petro should "watch his *ss" and called Colombia's leftist president "a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States."

Petro's M-19 urban guerrilla group disarmed under a 1989 peace agreement. He has traded barbs with Trump since the US president's return to the White House in January.

Petro has criticised the US military deployment in the Caribbean, which began with strikes on alleged narcoboats, expanded to seizing Venezuelan oil tankers, then culminated in Saturday's raid on Caracas to capture President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump accused Petro of involvement in drug trafficking without providing evidence and imposed financial sanctions on him and his family. Washington also removed Colombia from its list of countries certified as allies in the US war on drugs.

In a lengthy message on X, Petro defended his anti-narcotics policy but stressed limits on military aggression. "If you bomb even one of these groups without sufficient intelligence, you will kill many children," he wrote.

"If you bomb peasants, thousands will turn into guerrillas in the mountains. And if you detain the president, whom a good part of my people love and respect, you will unleash the popular jaguar," meaning, the Colombian people.

The Trump administration maintains close ties with Colombia's right-wing opposition, which hopes to win legislative and presidential elections this year.