By Sarah Roderick-Fitch | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – New details are emerging surrounding the U.S. strike on a suspected drug loading site in Venezuela, with multiple reports claiming a CIA drone carried it out.
President Donald Trump confirmed the strike Monday, describing the targeted site as an “implementation area,” to which he added “is no longer around.”
The president wouldn’t comment on whether the attack was carried out by the CIA, adding that he knows who it was, but would not disclose whether it was the intelligence agency or a military strike.
However, CNN reported the strike involved a drone launched by the CIA, citing “sources familiar with the matter.”
The outlet claims the strike “targeted a remote dock on the Venezuelan coast that the US government believed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for shipping.”
The explosion would mark the first known land strike the U.S. has made against Venezuela since the Trump administration began ramping up counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean.
Although a majority of the target strikes have occurred in the Caribbean, the U.S. Southern Command confirmed the Joint Task Force Southern Spear “conducted a lethal kinetic strike” on a marine vessel “operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in the international waters” in the eastern Pacific Monday.
The command says intelligence “confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” killing “two male narco-terrorists.”
The latest strikes come as the president confirmed Monday to reporters that he recently spoke with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, adding that not much came out of the conversation.
The administration has increased its military presence in the region, deploying the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to the area in support of ongoing operations. Dozens of boats suspected of trafficking drugs have been struck off the coast of the South American country.