US President Donald Trump on Monday said that the US had “hit” an area in Venezuela where boats are loaded with drugs, marking the first known time Washington has carried out land operations in Venezuela since a pressure campaign began against Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said. “They load the boats up with drugs, 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.”
It was not immediately clear what target was hit nor which part of the US government acted.
Photo: Reuters
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.”
CNN, citing sources, reported on Monday that the CIA had carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela.
The strike targeted a remote dock that the US believed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for onward shipping, CNN said.
Trump has previously said that he has authorized the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.
On a radio show on Friday last week, Trump made vague comments about an apparent US operation against a “big facility” in Venezuela.
“I don’t know if you read or saw, they have a big plant or a big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said. “Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So, we hit them very hard.”
The CIA, the White House and the Pentagon have not publicly elaborated on Trump’s comments. The Venezuelan government has also not commented on the incident Trump described and there have been no independent reports from Venezuela of it.
Primazol, a chemical plant in Zulia state, where a fire broke out on Christmas Eve, has denied online rumors that the blaze was what Trump alluded to in his comments. The company also said the fire was quickly extinguished and was under investigation.
Nearby residents said they heard an explosion, saw the fire and smelled chlorine.
The attack is part of an escalating effort to target what the Trump administration says are boats smuggling drugs bound for the US. 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 US military said it conducted another strike on Monday against a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific, killing two people.
The attacks have killed at least 107 people in 30 strikes since early September, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
VISHNU VANDALS: A Cambodian official accused Thailand of destroying a statue in a disputed border area, with video showing the Hindu structure being torn down The Thai military said ceasefire talks with Cambodia, set to begin yesterday, are expected to conclude with a meeting of the countries’ defense ministers on Saturday, as the two sides seek to end weeks of deadly clashes. The talks started at 4pm in Thailand’s Chanthaburi Province, which borders Cambodia. The Thai Ministry of Defense outlined several demands to be discussed ahead of the bilateral meeting of the General Border Committee (GBC) on Saturday. If secretariat-level discussions fail to reach agreement on key technical frameworks such as troop deployments, the Thai side would not proceed with the GBC meeting or sign any agreement on
RSS