The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a remote port facility inside Venezuela, marking the first known US attack on a target within the country, according to sources cited by CNN. The strike targeted a dock believed to be used by the Tren de Aragua gang to store and ship drugs, and caused no casualties. The operation underscores the Trump administration’s expanded counter-narcotics campaign against Venezuela and could further escalate tensions with President Nicolás Maduro, as US officials signal a continued willingness to target drug trafficking infrastructure using tactics similar to past counterterrorism operations. CNN reports:

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 onward shipping, the sources said. […]

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. […]

Top officials have made clear publicly and in briefings to lawmakers that they intend to continue targeting suspected drug smugglers using a similar playbook to the one used for killing terrorists during the global war on terror – a campaign in which the CIA played a crucial role, too. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has openly compared drug traffickers to al Qaeda.

“These narcoterrorists are the al Qaeda of our hemisphere,” the secretary said at the Reagan National Defense Forum earlier this month. “And we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al Qaeda.”

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