United States intelligence agencies carried out a covert drone strike earlier this month on a port facility along Venezuela’s coastline, according to sources familiar with the operation, in what is believed to be the first known US attack on a target inside the country.
The previously unreported strike hit a remote dock that US officials suspected was being used by the Venezuelan criminal group Tren de Aragua to store narcotics and transfer them ontous for international trafficking. Sources said the site was unoccupied at the time of the strike, resulting in no casualties.
While two sources claimed that US Special Operations Forces assisted with intelligence for the mission, that assertion was rejected by Col. Allie Weiskopf, a spokesperson for US Special Operations Command, who stated, “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support.”
President Donald Trump appeared to allude to the strike publicly for the first time during an interview last week that initially drew little attention.
However, when pressed by reporters on Monday, he declined to provide further operational details.
The strike risks heightening already strained relations between Washington and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the US has been attempting to force from power through an increasingly aggressive military posture in the region.
In recent months, the US has destroyed more than 30 suspected drug-trafficking boats across the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean as part of what it describes as a counter-narcotics campaign.
Trump has also ordered a blockade targeting sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.
While he had previously threatened direct strikes inside Venezuelan territory, US actions before this month were limited to operations against suspected traffickers in international waters.
The CIA declined to comment on the incident, while CNN has requested responses from the White House, US Special Operations Command, and Venezuela’s Ministries of Communications and Foreign Affairs.
Trump acknowledged on December 26 that US forces had disabled a major facility connected to maritime drug trafficking while discussing his administration’s approach toward Venezuela.
Revisiting the topic on Monday, he said the US struck “in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” but refused to clarify whether the CIA or the military conducted the operation.
“So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area,” Trump said Monday. “It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”
One source described the strike as tactically effective, noting that the dock and several boats were destroyed.
However, the source added that its overall impact was limited, as traffickers operate from numerous ports along Venezuela’s coast. The operation also appeared to generate little immediate attention, even domestically.
Earlier this year, Trump expanded the CIA’s operational authority across Latin America, including within Venezuela, CNN previously reported.
At the same time, US military forces remained legally restricted to striking suspected traffickers at sea rather than on land.
Officials within the Trump administration have offered differing explanations for the sustained military buildup in the Caribbean.
While publicly framed as a counter-narcotics effort, Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair that the boat strikes were intended to pressure Maduro to “cry uncle.”
Despite the campaign, the Venezuelan leader has shown no indication of stepping aside.
Senior US officials have made it clear in public statements and congressional briefings that operations against suspected drug traffickers will continue, following a model similar to counterterrorism campaigns during the global war on terror, where the CIA also played a central role.
“These narcoterrorists are the al Qaeda of our hemisphere,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier this month at the Reagan National Defense Forum. “And we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al Qaeda.”
