The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels, according to two people familiar with details of the operation who requested anonymity to discuss the classified matter.
The first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US began strikes in September marked a significant escalation in the administration’s months-long pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government. The strike has not been acknowledged by Venezuelan officials.
US President Donald Trump first made reference to the operation in an interview Friday with John Catsimatidis on WABC radio in New York, saying the US had knocked out some type of “big facility where ships come from”.
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In an exchange with reporters on Monday as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump added that the operation targeted a “dock area where they load the boats up with drugs”. But the US president declined to comment when asked whether the attack was conducted by the military or the CIA.
The CIA and White House officials also declined to offer further comment on the matter. Colonel Allie Weiskopf, a spokesperson for Special Operations Command, which oversees US operations in the Caribbean, said in a statement that “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support”.
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