CIA 'carries out drone strike' on Venezuelan drug port in first US land attack inside the country
By Stephen M. Lepore and Katelyn Caralle
Daily Mail
Dec 29, 2025
President Donald Trump said Friday that the ChristmasEve strike was on a facility 'where the ship comes from' – seemingly referencing the origination location of the alleged drug vessels that the US military has been targeting in the Caribbean and Atlantic over the last three months
The CIA is responsible for carrying out the first US land strike in Venezuela on a port facility believed to have been storing drugs bound for America, sources claim.
President Donald Trump confirmed the Christmas Eve strike on Monday, days after he casually discussed in a radio interview the attack on a facility 'where the ship comes from.'
The strike, which took place on a port dock authorities believe was the home base of the alleged drug vessels that the US military has been targeting in the Caribbean and Atlantic over the last three months, signaled a further escalation of tensions between the two countries.
Multiple sources have now told CNN that the drone strike was carried out by the CIA, after Trump refused to weigh in on the theory.
Asked if the CIA had carried out the attack, Trump said: 'I don't want to say that. I know exactly who it was but I don't want to say who it was.'
But Trump has previously said that he has authorized the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.
Sources said the strike took place on a remote dock on the coast of Venezuela believed to used by the Tren de Aragua gang to stockpile and transfer drugs.
The CIA received intelligence support from US Special Operations Forces. No one was killed and there was nobody at the facility when the attack took place.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House, CIA and US Special Operations Command for comment.
Trump initially seemed to confirm a strike in what appeared to be an impromptu radio interview Friday.
Following the Daily Mail's reporting of the under-the-radar strike, Trump confirmed the launch of land strikes in the region, and said the US struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs 'load up.'
'There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,' Trump said 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.'
It is part of an escalating effort to target what the Trump administration says are boats smuggling drugs bound for the United States.
It moves closer to shore strikes that so far have been carried out by the military in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
The latest is part of a continued campaign to apply pressure on Venezuelan socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, as boat strikes didn't appear to work to deter the so-called narco regime from continuing operations
The US has conducted over 30 drone strikes on boats in the region but had never previously struck close to land
Speaking on WABC on December 26, Trump made the bombshell suggestion that US forces have already started conducting land operations in Venezuela.
'I don't know if you read or you saw, they have a big plant or a big facility where they send the – where the ships come from,' the President said during a call-in with radio host and billionaire John Catsimatidis, who was filling in for Sid Rosenberg.
'Two nights ago we knocked that out – so we hit them very hard,' Trump confirmed.
The President said since late November that the US is shifting away from maritime attacks on drug boats and will 'soon' be conducting land strikes in Venezuela.
The latest is part of a continued campaign to apply pressure on Venezuelan socialist leader Nicolas Maduro.
A video posted to X last week showed a large explosion in the Zulia state of Venezuela near the second-largest city in the country, Maracaibo.
The state's San Francisco municipality sits on the western shore of the strait that connects Lake Maracaibo to the Gulf of Venezuela.
Zulia-based journalist Jhorman Cruz took the video of a massive fire with resulting explosions in the early hours of December 24. After it gained some traction on social media, Cruz downplayed that it could have been a US military strike.
'It is prudent to say that we still do not know what started the fire,' he wrote on X, according to a translation of his original post. 'Residents DID NOT see anything unusual, nor drones, nor cars, nor the presence of foreigners.'
'Be careful with strange hypotheses,' the El Público TV director warned.
Starting on September 2, 2025, the Department of War has been conducting strikes against suspected drug ships in the Caribbean and Atlantic.
The operations have killed more than 105 people and are aimed at trafficking routes the US says are to blame for a huge spike in overdose deaths.
The US Southern Command carried out its latest 'lethal strike' on Monday, killing two alleged 'narco-terrorists' in international waters.
But Trump has said that land targets are 'much easier' and has hinted at the shift with a series of comments warning 'land strikes will start very soon' and 'soon we will be starting the same program on land.'
He has also warned Maduro it would be 'smart' to step down, but has not gone as far as to confirm that the US military operations are to force regime change.
No comments:
Post a Comment