The drone attack carried out against a port in Venezuela last week was carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The information was disclosed by official sources in Washington to the newspaper The New York Times and the broadcaster CNN.
This is the first time that the US has carried out an attack against a target within the South American country and reinforces the scale of President Donald Trump’s pressure against leader Nicolás Maduro.
The attack targeted a suspected remote dock on the Venezuelan coast used for storing and transporting drugs. The same sources detailed that the location would be used by the criminal group Tren de Aragua, involved in international drug trafficking. According to reports, there were no people in the area at the time of the bombing.
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In an interview carried out the week of the attack on WABC radio, President Donald Trump even mentioned an offensive carried out by the country, but without giving clear details about the operation, such as information about its location. This Monday, on another occasion, the president confirmed US responsibility for the attack.
“There was a big explosion in the dock area where they load the boats with drugs,” he told reporters at Mar-a-Lago, Florida. “They load the boats with drugs. So we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It’s the distribution area, it’s where they distribute the drugs, and that doesn’t exist anymore.”
The White House and the CIA have not yet commented on the case. According to the CNNsources stated that US Special Operations Forces provided intelligence support to the operation. The information was denied by the spokeswoman for the US Special Operations Command, Colonel Allie Weiskopf. “Special Operations Forces did not support this operation, including providing intelligence information,” he said.
The Venezuelan government has also made no public statements about the attack. Venezuela’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, denounced months of “imperial madness” and “harassment, threats, attacks, persecution, robberies, piracy and murders”.
Investigations in Latin America
At the beginning of the year, President Trump had already expanded the CIA’s responsibilities to carry out operations in Latin America in international waters.
Until then, the US was putting pressure on Venezuela with military attacks only against vessels, as it was authorized to do. Supposedly, the attacks targeted criminals involved in drug trafficking or in operations against oil tankers in compliance with sanctions.
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