Why is Trump’s alleged strike on Venezuela shrouded in so much secrecy?
Trump’s comments have raised more questions than answers about what his administration is doing in the Southern Hemisphere
President Donald Trump let slip on Friday that his administration had “knocked out” a “big plant or a big facility where the ships come from” in Venezuela. It was an admission of sorts that the U.S. military had conducted its first land strike on Venezuelan soil. On Monday, he expanded on the announcement, saying the strike was on an “implementation area” for alleged drug smuggling.
Trump’s revelation, made during a radio interview with GOP billionaire donor John Catsimatidis, comes amid rising aggression toward the South American nation by the White House. The administration has bombed boats it claims are Venezuelan drug smuggling vessels in international waters. But unlike those strikes, which the White House has enthusiastically promoted across social media, the details of this alleged mainland attack have remained largely mysterious since Trump first raised the subject. Independent reports have identified the attack as a CIA drone strike with zero casualties, but the typically braggadocious Trump administration has been conspicuously tight-lipped.
Both the White House and CIA “declined to comment” on Trump's ambiguous claims, while military officials “said they had no information to share” about the strike, The New York Times said. Neither the White House nor the intelligence community has officially confirmed subsequent reports that the attack was a CIA drone operation. The agency is "not known to have conducted strikes recently, leaving operations to the U.S. military," said the Times in a separate report. Similarly unclear was whether the drone allegedly used in the strike was “owned by the CIA or borrowed from the U.S. military.”
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Trump’s “vague comments” left “questions about which part of the U.S. government acted and what target was hit,” said Reuters. The president’s remarks also “set off swirling rumors” as many on social media speculated that a recent “explosion at an industrial zone” in the city of Maracaibo may have been the mysterious strikes, said . Chemical company Primazol, which had previously confirmed a warehouse fire corresponding to the mysterious explosion, said in a that it “categorically rejects” the insinuation.