CIA launches first drone strike in Venezuela

The United States has carried out its first confirmed drone strike inside Venezuela, marking a dramatic escalation in Washington’s expanding military campaign across the Caribbean. The operation, reportedly conducted by the CIA, targeted a remote port facility believed to be used by the Tren de Aragua gang to store and transport narcotics. No casualties were reported, as the dock was empty at the time of the strike.

President Donald Trump publicly acknowledged the attack in late December, describing a “major explosion” at a dock where drug-laden boats were allegedly loaded. Trump first revealed the strike during a radio interview, placing the operation around December 24, before later confirming it to reporters while declining to specify whether the CIA or the military carried out the mission. “I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was,” he said from his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Drug networks

The strike comes amid a significant expansion of Operation Southern Spear, now the largest US military deployment in the Caribbean since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Around 15,000 US troops have been positioned across the region, supported by the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group and F-35 fighter jets. Since September, US forces have carried out at least 28 strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, resulting in more than 100 deaths, as Washington intensifies efforts to dismantle transnational drug networks.

The campaign has drawn fierce criticism from legal experts and international bodies. United Nations investigators have condemned the strikes as “extrajudicial executions,” warning they violate the UN Charter’s prohibition on the use of force. US legal scholars have also questioned the domestic legality of the operation, arguing it exceeds constitutional and statutory limits on executive power.

A slave’s peace

Venezuela has not formally commented on the dock strike, though Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello has accused the United States of months of “imperial madness.” President Nicolás Maduro has rejected Trump’s demands to step aside, telling supporters the country seeks peace “with sovereignty, equality, and freedom” — not what he described as “a slave’s peace.”