The strike on a staging facility for drug boats along the Venezuelan shore is an escalation in the U.S. campaign in the Caribbean.
President Donald Trump on Dec. 29 said that the United States had knocked out a loading facility linked to Venezuelan drug boats sometime before Dec. 26 as part of Washington’s ongoing campaign against vessels carrying narcotics to the United States.
On Monday, Trump told reporters that strikes had taken place, confirming that they had been carried out as part of U.S. anti-drug trafficking operations in the region.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump told reporters from Mar-a-Lago, where he was hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“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.”
Trump added that the site hit was “along the shore,” but didn’t say which U.S. military branch or intelligence agencies had been involved in the airstrike.
Trump had first made mention that U.S. forces had struck “a big facility” involving drug boat operations in a Dec. 26 radio interview, but provided few details at the time.
For days, the comment went unremarked by major media, with the administration not immediately providing any further details on the strike mentioned by Trump. Venezuelan officials also have not commented on the reported strikes or provided additional information.
It’s still unclear when exactly the reported strikes took place.
Asked on Monday whether the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was responsible, Trump demurred.
“I don’t want to say that. I know exactly who it was but I don’t want to say who it was,” Trump said.
Trump has previously stated that the CIA has been authorized to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.
Trump first mentioned the strike—the first of its kind to aim for land targets within Venezuela—during an impromptu interview with John Catsimatidis, a Republican billionaire who owns the WABC radio station in New York.
By Guy Birchall and Joseph Lord
