ZAP // White House / Depositphotos
When asked whether the attack in Venezuela had been carried out by the armed forces or the CIA, the US president refused to comment. The CIA and White House officials also chose not to provide further clarification on the matter.
The CIA was behind last week’s attack on a dock area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels, two people with knowledge of the details of the operation told the AP, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter, classified as confidential.
This was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US began attacks in September, marking a significant climb in the pressure campaign, which has been going on for several months, by the North American government on the Nicolas Maduro.
Venezuelan authorities did not acknowledge the attack.
The president Donald Trump made reference to the operation for the first time in an interview, on Friday, with John Catsimatidison WABC radio in New York, stating that the US had destroyed a kind of “Great installation where ships depart from.”
In a conversation with journalists on Monday, while receiving the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahuat his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump added that the operation targeted a “dock area where they load boats with drugs.”
However, when asked by journalists whether the attack in Venezuela had been conducted by the military or the CIAthe American president refused to comment. The CIA and White House officials also chose not to provide further clarification on the matter.
A coronel Allie Weiskopfa spokesman for the Special Operations Command, which oversees US operations in the Caribbean, said in a statement that “Special Operations did not support this operation, including in intelligence support.”
The attack represents a escalation of an operation which began with a North American one in the Caribbean Sea, which began in August, and which was followed by at least 30 military attacks from the USA to vessels suspected of drug trafficking in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific.
More recently, recalls NPR, Trump ordered a type of blockade, with the aim of seizing sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.
CNN was the first media outlet to report the CIA’s involvement in this operation.
For several months, targets in Venezuelan territory. He also took the unusual decision of publicly acknowledging that he had authorized the CIA to carry out covert actions in Venezuela.
The US administration is forced to report secret CIA actions to senior Congressional officials, including the chairmen and top members of the Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees.
Still, by entrusting what appears to be the first ground attack of the Venezuelan campaign to the intelligence agency, Trump may be calculating that this action will be subject to less scrutiny by lawmakers than a military attack.
“I authorized it for two reasons, actually.. Number one, they emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” he said in October, confirming to journalists that he had given the CIA the green light. “And then there is the issue of drugs; we have lots of drugs arriving from Venezuelaand much of it arrives by sea.”
However, Trump has repeated that Maduro’s days in power are numbered. Since 2020, the Venezuelan leader and close members of his circle have faced federal charges in the United States for narcoterrorism and other crimes.
Maduro has denied these accusations. This year, the US Department of Justice doubled the reward for information leading to his arrest to $50 million.
During an hour-long speech Tuesday at an international women’s leadership school, the Venezuelan president did not make any reference to the CIA operation.
