Trump claims attack on a dock in Venezuela; US strikes kill two in Pacific 

United States President Donald Trump has claimed an attack on a dock in Venezuela that he said was used to load “boats up with drugs”, marking the first known land strike by US forces in the Latin American country since Washington launched its pressure campaign four months ago.

The announcement on Monday came as the US military said it conducted another strike against an alleged drug boat on the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least two people.

Trump first spoke about the strike in Venezuela during a radio interview on Friday, and when asked by reporters on Monday about an explosion in the country, he said the US had struck a facility where boats load up.

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said as he met in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats, and now, we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. That’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”

Trump declined to say if the US military or the CIA had carried out the strike on the dock, or where it occurred.

“I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But, you know, it was along the shore,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from Venezuela on the attack, and there have been no independent reports from the country about a US attack.

The claim came as the Trump administration escalates its pressure campaign against Venezuela, part of a broader effort to target what the president says are drug-smuggling operations bound for the US.

Caracas denies any involvement in drug trafficking and insists that Washington is seeking to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to seize the country’s oil reserves, which are the world’s largest.

The latest US action appears to mark a shift closer to shore-based strikes, following months of military operations in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

The attacks have killed at least 107 people in 30 strikes since early September, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.

The strikes are widely considered illegal under both US and international law and have been described as extrajudicial killings by legal scholars and rights groups.

The US Southern Command described the latest victims of its strikes on Monday as “two male narco-terrorists” and said their vessel was engaged in “narco-trafficking operations”.

The attacks come amid a large US military buildup in the region, including more than 15,000 troops, as well as the seizure of several oil tankers as part of a blockade Trump has ordered on sanctioned vessels entering and leaving Venezuela.

For months, Trump has suggested that the US could expand its operations to include land strikes in South America, particularly in Venezuela, and has recently said the US would move beyond targeting boats and strike on land “soon”.

In October, Trump confirmed that he had authorised the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela. The agency did not comment on Trump’s comments on Monday.

The White House’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, said in an interview with Vanity Fair published this month that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle”.