The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a dock in Venezuela allegedly used in drug trafficking, according to a report, marking another escalation of the Trump administration’s military actions in the Caribbean.
The U.S. government believed the site was used by members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang to store and ship drugs overseas, CNN reports.
No one was present at the port at the time of the strike, according to the network’s source. Still, the operation was regarded as a success because it achieved its objectives and destroyed the facility, even if it represented just one of many such docks along the country’s coastline that might be used by smugglers.
President Donald Trump appeared to acknowledge the operation in comments made on Friday, saying the U.S. had struck a “big facility where ships come from” during an interview.
Asked about it again on Monday, he said American forces had attacked “the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.”
“So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area,” the president added. “It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”
The Independent has contacted the White House, CIA, and Department of Defense for comment.
The episode marks the latest escalation of tensions between the U.S. and Nicolas Maduro’s regime after the Coast Guard seized a second sanctioned oil tanker last week and pursued a third, following months of deadly strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that have resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people.
The U.S. has meanwhile overseen a huge buildup of naval assets in the region, instigated a blockade of Venezuelan oil allegedly bound for sanctioned countries, and warned that land strikes, like the dock blast, will soon follow.
Trump has faced heavy criticism over his administration’s failure to offer evidence to substantiate its claims that the vessels being targeted belong to dangerous drug traffickers attempting to deliver harmful intoxicants to American shores.
Both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have expressed their disquiet, with Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul recently warning against actions that amount to “provocations” and “a prelude to war.”
That has not stopped Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from brushing aside their objections and engaging in saber-rattling rhetoric, with the latter recently comparing the cartels of Central America to al-Qaeda.
“These narcoterrorists are the al-Qaeda of our hemisphere,” he said at the Reagan National Defense Forum earlier this month.
“And we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al-Qaeda.”
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