President Donald Trump has said the US has carried out a strike on a dock area linked to alleged Venezuelan drug boats.
Speaking to reporters in Florida on Monday, Trump stated there had been a major explosion last week where they load the boats up with drugs. However, he did not provide details on the location of the dock or confirm whether the US military or CIA were involved in the operation.
The Venezuelan government has yet to respond to the strike, and it remains unclear whether the attack took place within Venezuelan territory.
Since September, the US has targeted over 20 vessels it claims are involved in drug smuggling, with many linked to Venezuela, in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, resulting in at least 100 fatalities.
During a social media post on Monday, US Southern Command confirmed the most recent strike, announcing that two narco-terrorists were killed in a lethal kinetic strike in the eastern Pacific.
Trump has previously indicated that land strikes against Venezuela could be on the table, authorized covert CIA actions, and enacted pressure campaigns against President Nicolás Maduro.
When pressed about the CIA's involvement in the recent attack, Trump replied, I don't want to say that. I know exactly who it was, but I don't want to say who it was.
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, he remarked, referring to the strike's outcome.
This comment marks the second occasion Trump has referenced the explosion, noting in a prior radio interview a US operation against a big facility without offering extensive details.
The Pentagon has shifted inquiries about the strikes toward the White House, which has yet to respond to requests for comments. Notably, in past operations targeting alleged drug boats, the Pentagon has published visual evidence on social media; however, no images have yet surfaced regarding the dock incident.
The Trump administration views the strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific as direct assaults on entities transporting illegal drugs to the US by boat.
Amid these operations, the US has deployed 15,000 troops along with a flotilla of aircraft carriers and guided-missile destroyers to the Caribbean—the largest military presence in the region since the Panama invasion of 1989, aiming to halt the influx of substances like fentanyl and cocaine.
Among the assets is the USS Gerald Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier, from which US helicopters reportedly launched during an operation that resulted in the seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela on December 10.
Claims by the Trump administration allege that Venezuela utilizes oil revenue to finance drug-related activities, with Venezuela condemning these seizures as acts of piracy.
President Maduro has dismissed US allegations of cartel leadership and accused the US of leveraging its war on drugs policy as a pretext for attempting to overthrow his government and gain control of Venezuela's oil reserves.
On whether the intention behind these seizures is to remove Maduro from power, Trump replied, Well, I think it probably would... That's up to him what he wants to do. I think it'd be smart for him to do that. But again, we're gonna find out.
