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Donald Trump has said the US carried out an attack on a “dock area” in Venezuela, confirming that Washington had struck inside the country.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” the president said in response to questions about the strike on Monday, ahead of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We hit all the boats and now we hit . . . the implementation area. That is where they implement, and that is no longer around,” Trump added.
The president did not say whether the US military or the CIA had carried out the strike, and would not confirm whether others had been conducted.
Trump told a radio interviewer last Friday that the US had earlier that week destroyed “a big [drug] facility . . . where the ships come from” as part of its campaign against Venezuelan drug traffickers. He said the public had probably “read” about it, but did not say where the strike took place.
It was unclear whether the “big explosion” on the dock was the same as a blast that occurred at a coastal chemical plant in San Francisco, Venezuela on Christmas Eve.
The chemical company Primazol on Monday “categorically rejected” the notion that the US was behind the explosion at its plant.
“We responsibly clarify that these statements have no relation whatsoever to the incident that occurred and do not correspond to official or verified information,” the company said in a statement. Primazol has declined to say what caused the explosion.
The Venezuelan government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Nicolás Maduro, who has been designated by the Trump administration as the head of a “foreign terrorist” drug cartel, has described the US naval build-up in the Caribbean as a pretext for his ousting.
But neither Maduro, who spoke to Venezuelan armed forces on Sunday, nor interior minister Diosdado Cabello who delivered a news conference on Monday, addressed Trump’s claim or the chemical plant explosion.
“Venezuela has been threatened by Goliath for 27 weeks, and for 27 weeks our military force has been deployed with intelligence, wisdom and strategic patience,” Maduro said during his Sunday speech.
The Trump administration says it has carried out 29 strikes on suspected drug trafficking boats across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 105 people since September. The US carried out its two most recent attacks on boats on December 22.
Additional reporting by Ana Rodríguez Brazón in Caracas and Steff Chávez in Chicago
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