{"id":12955,"date":"2025-10-16T06:17:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T04:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/trump-authorises-cia-covert-operations-in-venezuela-warns-of-action-against-drug-cartels\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:26:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:26:05","slug":"trump-authorises-cia-covert-operations-in-venezuela-warns-of-action-against-drug-cartels","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/trump-authorises-cia-covert-operations-in-venezuela-warns-of-action-against-drug-cartels\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump authorises CIA covert operations in Venezuela, warns of action against drug cartels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This signals a major escalation in Washington\u2019s approach to the South American nation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to journalists at the White House on Wednesday, President Trump said the move forms part of broader plans to target drug cartels operating in and around Venezuela. His comments follow a series of recent US strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea, which Washington claims were being used to smuggle narcotics. The attacks reportedly killed 27 people.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey came in because we had an open border policy,\u201d Trump said. \u201cA lot of these countries, they\u2019re not the only country, but they\u2019re the worst abuser, have allowed thousands of prisoners and people from mental institutions to enter the US. We\u2019re bringing them back, and the other thing is drugs. We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Sherwin Bryce-Pease\/ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12956,"template":"default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-12955","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"United States (US) President Donald Trump has confirmed that he has authorised the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out covert operations inside Venezuela. ||United States (US) President Donald Trump has confirmed that he has authorised the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out covert operations inside Venezuela. ","published_date":null,"news_description":"United States (US) President Donald Trump has confirmed that he has authorised the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out covert operations inside Venezuela. ||United States (US) President Donald Trump has confirmed that he has authorised the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out covert operations inside Venezuela. ","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18305,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12955\/revisions\/18305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=12955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}