(CNN) The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that country.
The drone strike, the details of which have not been previously reported, targeted a remote dock on the Venezuelan coast that the US government believed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for shipping, the sources said. No one was present at the facility at the time it was struck, so there were no casualties, according to the sources.
Two sources said US Special Operations Forces provided intelligence support to the operation, underscoring their continued involvement in the region. But Col. Allie Weiskopf, a spokesperson for US Special Operations Command, denied that, saying, “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support.”
President Donald Trump appeared to first acknowledge the attack in an interview last week that initially attracted little notice, though he offered few specifics, including when reporters asked directly about it on Monday.
The strike could significantly escalate tensions between the US and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who the US has been pressuring to step down through an aggressive military campaign.
The US has launched strikes destroying more than 30 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in what it has described as a counter-narcotics campaign, and Trump has ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers coming to and leaving Venezuela. Trump had also repeatedly threatened to carry out strikes inside Venezuela, but until the CIA attack earlier this month, the only known US strikes on Venezuelan targets were against the suspected drug-trafficking boats in international waters.
The CIA declined to comment. CNN has asked the White House, US Special Operations Command, and Venezuela’s Ministry of Communications and Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.
Trump acknowledged in an interview on Friday that the US had knocked out some type of “big facility where ships come from” as he talked about his administration’s campaign against Venezuela. Asked about it again on Monday, he said the US attacked “in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.” But he declined to comment when asked whether the attack was conducted by the military or the CIA.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/29/politics/cia-drone-strike-venezuela
