Trump says US conducting CIA covert operations inside Venezuela

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he has authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela, a rare confirmation from any sitting US leader about the intelligence agency's operations.

The acknowledgement comes after the US military carried out a series of deadly strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean, destroying at least five boats since early September and killing 27.

Four of those boats have come from Venezuela, according to reports.

“I authorised for two reasons, really. Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” Trump said at the Oval Office late Wednesday.

“And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”

Trump said the administration “is looking at land” as it considers further strikes in the region, but declined to say whether the CIA has the authority to take action against President Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro pushes back

On Wednesday, Maduro lashed out at the record of the US spy agency in various conflicts around the world and called for peace.

Maduro addressed a televised event of the National Council for Sovereignty and Peace, which comprises representatives from various political, economic, academic, and cultural sectors in Venezuela.

“Not war, yes peace, not war. Is that how you would say it? Who speaks English? Not war, but yes, peace, for the people of the United States, please," Maduro said, speaking in English.

He criticised the CIA, tying it to recent US-led military interventions: “No to regime change that reminds us so much of ... the failed eternal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and so on.”

Also, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement, rejected what it called “the bellicose and extravagant statements by the president of the United States, in which he publicly admits to having authorised operations to act against the peace and stability of Venezuela.”

Crackdown on dissent

Meanwhile, on Monday afternoon, Venezuelan human rights activist Yendri Velásquez and political consultant Luis Peche Arteaga were shot while leaving a building in the north of Bogota by two unidentified people waiting for them in a car.

It was not immediately clear who was behind their shooting. Colombian authorities said they were investigating the attack.

The hit-style shooting of two Venezuelan activists in Colombia's capital is fuelling fears among Venezuela's diaspora that a crackdown on dissent by Maduro is seeping beyond the South American nation's borders.

The two men were among an exodus of political opposition and civil society leaders who fled Venezuela after Maduro was widely accused of stealing last year's election, and the government detained more than 2,000 people, including human rights defenders and critics.

Recently, Venezuela has once again come roaring into the spotlight. Days before the attack, opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize by a committee elected by the Norwegian parliament.

The same day of the shooting, Maduro announced he was closing the Venezuelan embassy in Oslo in what is believed to be an act of retaliation.