A throwaway remark last week by US President Donald Trump has raised questions about whether US forces may have carried out their first land strike against drug cartels in Venezuela.
Trump said the US knocked out a “big facility” for producing trafficking boats, as he was discussing his pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in an interview broadcast on Friday.
“They have a big plant or a big facility where they send, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said in an interview with billionaire supporter John Catsimatidis on the WABC radio station in New York.
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“Two nights ago we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.”
Trump did not say which facility the US had targeted, nor did he make clear if this operation was conducted by a branch of the military or some other entity. Trump has previously said he has authorised the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.
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The Central Intelligence Agency, the White House and the Pentagon have not publicly elaborated on Trump’s comments and declined to comment on questions posed by Reuters.