The U.S President Trump has claimed that US forces struck a “big facility” in Venezuela last week – but the president did not specify what it was, or where, and the White House has not commented further.
“We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump told Republican donor and New York supermarket owner John Catsimatidis on Friday.
Trump on Monday went further in his characterization of the strike, saying: “Well, it doesn’t matter. But there was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs. We hit the area.”
In October, Trump acknowledged that he had given the CIA permission to carry out clandestine activities in Venezuela.
“I truly gave my permission for two reasons. First of all, they entered the United States of America via the border after emptying their cells. In the Oval Office, Trump told reporters, “They came in because we had an open border.” “And drugs are the other thing,” he continued.
If a US strike or covert action is verified, it will be the first land strike on Venezuela since the Pentagon started assembling US strike forces in the area to stop drug traffickers who, according to the Trump administration, are acting under Nicolás Maduro’s orders.
Since then, the military buildup’s original declared goal has evolved into a blockade that deploys a global shadow fleet of oil tankers outside of Chevron, the only authorized shipper of Venezuelan oil, to disrupt the nation’s oil shipments.
For weeks, Trump has threatened that US soldiers are prepared to extend the military campaign by attacking targets inside Venezuela, a move that would theoretically need approval from Congress.
On December 24, video footage that was uploaded online seemed to show an explosion that was reportedly coming from the San Francisco municipality’s industrial zone in Zulia state.
Nevertheless, neither the facility nor the video have been independently confirmed. In his remarks to Catsimatidis, the president was referring to a narcotics facility, an administration official told CNN.
There have been no independent reports from Venezuela regarding the incident Trump claimed, and the Venezuelan government has not responded.
The largest maritime enforcement action of Trump’s presidency is the US military deployment in the area, which the White House refers to as a maritime “quarantine” encircling Venezuela.
While acknowledging that some 15,000 personnel, including a carrier strike group, F-35s, and Coast Guard cutters, are stationed throughout the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico to implement current sanctions, administration officials have refrained from characterizing the effort as a blockade.
Source: The Guardian
