President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States struck a Venezuelan “dock area” he described as linked to drug-running boats, claiming a “major explosion” at a site where traffickers “load the boats up with drugs,” according to the BBC.
While Trump declined to identify who carried out the attack, telling reporters, “I don’t want to say that” when asked about the CIA, the BBC reported there has been no official confirmation from Caracas and no strike footage has been released the way the Pentagon has publicized prior maritime interdiction strikes.
U.S. officials familiar with the operation, however, told CNN the CIA conducted a drone strike earlier this month on a remote port/dock facility on Venezuela’s coast, which U.S. intelligence assessed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store narcotics and move them onto boats for onward shipment. The network reported no one was present at the time of the strike and no casualties resulted.
The New York Times separately reported that the strike occurred last week and described it as the first known U.S. operation inside Venezuela during the Trump administration’s pressure campaign, targeting a dock believed to be involved in staging narcotics for loading onto boats. The Times said Trump had mentioned the incident twice in recent days, first in a radio interview and again on Monday. His first mention can be listened to below.
Key operational details remain contested. CNN reported that sources described U.S. Special Operations Forces as providing intelligence support, but a U.S. Special Operations Command spokesperson denied any support “to include intel support.” The CIA declined to comment to CNN, while the Pentagon referred questions to the White House, which has not provided a detailed public account at the time of publication.
The reported land strike comes as Washington intensifies a wider campaign that has combined counter-narcotics justification with escalating pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. U.S. strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have been occurring since September. It appears the operation has now expanded from maritime strikes, to tanker seizures, to clandestine land strikes.
A new boat strike occurred yesterday, bringing the total number to 30 (31 if you count the dock), with the U.S. reporting 106 total individuals killed in those strikes.