Trump says U.S. cracked down on ‘massive facilities’ linked to Venezuelan drug ships

Donald Trump said the US had carried out attacks on “dockyards” linked to alleged Venezuelan drug ships.

The US president said there had been a “major explosion” and “they had drugs on board” but gave no further details. The Venezuelan government has yet to respond.

According to people familiar with the matter, the explosion was caused by a drone strike launched by the CIA, CNN and the New York Times. If confirmed, it would be the first known U.S. action inside Venezuela.

Since September, the United States has launched strikes on more than 20 drug smuggling ships in the Pacific and Caribbean, killing at least 100 people.

The latest attack occurred on Monday, when U.S. Southern Command said in a social media post that two “narco-terrorists” were killed in a “lethal kinetic attack” in the eastern Pacific.

Trump has previously threatened ground strikes in Venezuela and authorized covert CIA operations in the country as part of an effort to pressure President Nicolás Maduro.

Asked by reporters on Monday if the CIA carried out the attack, Trump said, “I don’t want to say that. I know exactly who it is, but I don’t want to say who.”

“We attacked all the ships and now we’re attacking this area… this is the enforcement zone. That’s where they implemented it but that’s no longer there,” he said of the strike.

Trump’s comments were his second mention of the bombings. In a radio interview last week, Trump described U.S. operations targeting “large facilities,” but he provided limited details.

The Pentagon referred questions from BBC News to the White House. The White House has not yet commented.

When the United States has carried out previous attacks on ships suspected of drug trafficking, including Monday’s attack, the Pentagon has posted images and videos on social media to confirm the attack. No images of the dock incident have been shared so far.

The Trump administration has described attacks on ships in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, mostly from Venezuela, as attacks targeting terrorists trying to transport deadly and illegal drugs into the United States via ships.

The United States has deployed 15,000 troops and a series of aircraft carriers, guided missile destroyers and amphibious assault ships to the Caribbean.

The deployment, the largest in the region since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, was explicitly aimed at stemming the flow of fentanyl and cocaine into the United States.

These include the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier. According to reports, U.S. helicopters took off before the U.S. military seize an oil tanker on December 10 in the waters off Venezuela.

The Trump administration has accused Venezuela of using oil revenue to fund drug-related crimes. Venezuela condemned the seizure as “an act of piracy.”

Maduro denies U.S. claims that he is the leader of the cartel and accuses the U.S. of using the “war on drugs” as a pretext to try to overthrow him and gain access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Last week, Trump was asked whether the seizure was aimed at forcing Maduro to step down. Trump responded: “Well, I think it could be … it depends on what he wants to do. I think he would be wise to do that. But again we’ll find out.”