The strike did not appear to attract much attention, even within the country, but does run the risk of escalating tension between the US President Trump and Venezuelan President Maduro
The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, according to reports.
It marks the first known US attack on a target inside that country. US President Donald Trump initially seemed to confirm a strike in what appeared to be an impromptu radio interview Friday, and when questioned Monday by reporters about “an explosion in Venezuela,” he said the U.S. struck a facility where boats are accused of “loading up drugs”.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said referring to the strike on Venezuela as he met in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. There’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”
The strike targeted a remote dock on the Venezuelan coast. The US government believed the dock was being used by Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store and move drugs onto boats for onward shipping, CNN reported.
No casualties have been reported as it is believed there was no one at the facility at the time of the strike. CNN reported that the strike appeared to attract little to no attention, even inside the country, in real time.
The strike could escalate tensions between the US and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The US been has been pressuring Maduro to step down through an aggressive military campaign.
The US has struck more than 30 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in what it has said is a counter-narcotics campaign. Trump has also ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers to and from Venezuela.
The US president has repeated threatened to carry out strikes inside Venezuela, but the only known US strikes on Venezuelan targets were against the suspected drug trafficking boats in international waters, before the hit carried out by the CIA earlier this month.
CNN reported that the CIA declined to comment.
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