In early December, the CIA carried out a drone strike on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, CNN reported, citing its sources.
This is the first known case of a US attack on a target on Venezuelan territory, and President Donald Trump announced the strike without providing details.
According to the channel, the strike hit a remote dock that US authorities believe is used by the Venezuelan group Tren de Aragua to store drugs and load them onto ships.
The facility was unoccupied at the time of the attack and there were no casualties.
According to CNN, US special forces provided intelligence support for operation, confirming its continued involvement in campaigns in the region.
On December 26, Trump announced that the United States had destroyed a “major facility where ships arrive“.
On Monday, at a joint press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, he said that there had been a large explosion “in the port area where boats with drugs are loaded“.
However, the president refused to confirm the CIA's involvement in the attack.
The Venezuelan Air Force destroyed 39 drug-trafficking planes in 2025, bringing its total to 430 since the adoption of the anti-drug law, President Nicolas Maduro announced on the television channel Venezolana de Televisión.
“I want to congratulate our armed forces, our territorial defense complex and especially our air defense and military aviation, because yesterday in the state of Apure the 31st drug trafficking plane was shot down this year“, the head of state said. He added that on December 29 in the state of Amazonas, near the border with Brazil, the military aviation destroyed eight drug trafficking planes, bringing the total number to 39 planes in 2025.
Maduro stressed that since the adoption of the anti-drug law, 430 drug trafficking planes have been shot down and destroyed.
Washington accuses the Venezuelan authorities of insufficiently combating drug smuggling. The US Navy has deployed a strike group of US ships, led by the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, with more than 16,000 troops to the Caribbean Sea, and has destroyed at least 28 motorboats in international waters since September, killing more than 100 people.