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The CIA conducted a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility along Venezuela’s coast, marking the first known U.S. attack on a target inside the South American nation, sources have reported.
The strike reportedly targeted a remote dock that U.S. officials believe was being used by the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua to store and ship narcotics, the sources said. CNN reported that no one was present at the site when it was hit, and there were no casualties.
Two sources told the outlet that U.S. Special Operations Forces provided intelligence for the mission, though Col. Allie Weiskopf, a spokesperson for U.S. Special Operations Command, denied that claim. “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support,” Weiskopf said.
President Donald Trump appeared to reference the strike in an interview last week but declined to offer details. “We attacked in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said. “So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”
The CIA strike represents an escalation in U.S. counter-narcotics operations targeting Venezuelan criminal networks and could heighten tensions with President Nicolás Maduro’s government. Trump’s administration has been pressuring Maduro to step down through diplomatic isolation and military deterrence.
The United States has destroyed more than 30 vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific in recent months as part of what officials describe as a campaign to disrupt narcotics smuggling. Trump has also ordered a blockade of oil tankers linked to Venezuela’s sanctioned energy sector.
Until this operation, U.S. strikes involving Venezuela had been limited to targets in international waters. Earlier this year, Trump authorized expanded CIA operations across Latin America, including Venezuela, aimed at targeting drug traffickers using tactics modeled on counterterrorism campaigns from the war on terror.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth drew a direct comparison between drug smugglers and global terrorist networks during remarks at the Reagan National Defense Forum this month. “These narcoterrorists are the al-Qaida of our hemisphere,” Hegseth said. “And we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al-Qaida.”