Trump says US ‘hit’ drug boat loading facility in Venezuela pressure campaign
If confirmed, it would mark the first known land strike on Venezuelan soil since the US began its lethal anti-cartel campaign in September
US President Donald Trump has indicated that the US has “hit” a dock facility along a shore as he wages a pressure campaign on Venezuela, but the US offered few details.
Trump initially seemed to confirm a strike in what appeared to be an impromptu radio interview Friday, and when questioned Monday by reporters about “an explosion in Venezuela”, he said the US struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs “load up”.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said as he met in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. There’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”
It is part of an escalating effort to target what the Trump administration says are boats smuggling drugs bound for the United States. 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 Ocean, 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.