Palm Beach (United States) (AFP) – The United States hit and destroyed a docking area for alleged Venezuela drug boats, President Donald Trump said Monday, in what could amount to the first land strike of the military campaign against trafficking from Latin America. The US leader’s confirmation of the incident comes as he ramps up a pressure campaign against Venezuela’s leftist President Nicolas Maduro, who has accused Trump of seeking regime change.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “So we hit all the boats and now we hit the area, it’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”
Trump would not say if it was a military or CIA operation or where the strike occurred, noting only that it was “along the shore.” Sources familiar with the operation told CNN and the New York Times that the CIA had carried out a drone strike on a port facility. The strike was believed to be targeting the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, though no one was present at the time of the operation and there were no casualties, the US media outlets reported.
There has been no official comment from the Venezuelan government. The Pentagon earlier referred questions to the White House. The White House did not respond to requests for comment from AFP. Asked on Monday if he had spoken to Maduro recently, Trump said they had talked “pretty recently” but that “nothing much comes out of it.”
Trump revealed details of the operation after being asked to elaborate on comments he made in a radio interview broadcast Friday that seemed to mention a land strike for the first time. “They have a big plant or a big facility where they send, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump told billionaire supporter John Catsimatidis on the WABC radio station in New York. “Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.”
Trump did not say in the interview where the facility was located or give any other details. Trump has been threatening for weeks that ground strikes on drug cartels in the region would start “soon,” but this is the first apparent example.
– Fresh US strike in Pacific –
US forces have also carried out numerous strikes in both the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since September, targeting what Washington says are drug-smuggling boats. The administration has provided no evidence that the targeted boats were involved in drug trafficking, however, prompting debate about the legality of these operations. International law experts and rights groups say the strikes likely amount to extrajudicial killings, a charge that Washington denies.
After Trump spoke Monday, the US military announced on social media that it had carried out another strike on a boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing two and bringing the total killed in the maritime campaign to at least 107. It did not specify where exactly the strike took place. The Trump administration has been ramping up pressure on Maduro, accusing the Venezuelan leader of running a drug cartel himself and imposing an oil tanker blockade.
© 2024 AFP
