Venezuelan VP calls US sanctions an 'attack'

Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami hit back today at the United States for labeling him a drug kingpin and slapping sanctions on him, calling the accusations a "vile attack."
"I take this miserable and vile attack as recognition of my status as an anti-imperialist revolutionary," El Aissami, the heir apparent to Socialist President Nicolas Maduro, wrote on Twitter.
The US Treasury Department on Monday accused El Aissami and an ally, businessman Samark Jose Lopez Bello, of being major cocaine traffickers and froze their US assets.
It said El Aissami protected and oversaw large shipments of drugs from Venezuela to Mexico and the United States while serving as the country's interior minister and governor of Aragua state.

El Aissami was allegedly in the pay of Venezuelan drug kingpin Walid Makled Garcia to protect shipments, and coordinated them with Mexico's violent Los Zetas cartel, the Treasury said.
"Let's not let these vile provocations distract us. Our main job is to accompany Nicolas Maduro in (Venezuela's) economic recovery," El Aissami tweeted.

"We must concentrate on the revolutionary government's priorities: economic recovery and growth and guaranteeing PEACE and social happiness."
He added a shout-out to late leftist firebrand Hugo Chavez, Maduro's predecessor and the man who launched Venezuela on the path of socialist "revolution" -- and a diplomatic collision course with the "imperialist" United States -- in 1999.

"Long live CHAVEZ!!" he wrote.
The US sanctions cast a dark shadow over El Aissami, 42, who became the troubled South American country's vice president on January 4. El Aissami, who was born in Merida state, served as a minister under Chavez.