US officials brief Trump on revised options for possible Venezuela operations

ISTANBUL

Senior military officials briefed US President Donald Trump on revised options for possible operations in Venezuela, including ground strikes, several people familiar with the White House meetings told CBS News on Thursday.

The sources said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine and other top officials outlined potential military plans for the days ahead. Two people familiar with the briefings told CBS News that no final decision has been made.

White House representatives declined to comment, and a Pentagon spokesperson also would not respond, the report said. US intelligence agencies contributed information to support planning for potential actions, according to the sources.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard did not attend the meetings because she was returning from travel abroad, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Canada for a G7 foreign ministers’ summit, the sources said.

Earlier this week, the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group moved into the area overseen by US Southern Command, the combatant command responsible for military operations in the Caribbean and South America. The Ford is now operating alongside a group of destroyers, military aircraft and special operations units already in the region, the report said.

Over the past two months, the US military has carried out attacks on at least 21 vessels it says were transporting drugs from South America to the United States. Twenty strikes have been executed so far, though one mission in late October targeted two separate boats, according to the report.

At least 80 suspected traffickers have been killed in those actions. Two suspected smugglers survived and were repatriated to Ecuador and Colombia; the man who returned to Ecuador was released after authorities found no evidence he had committed a crime, the sources said.

At a defense summit on Wednesday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Hegseth discussed the Trump administration’s campaign against drug smuggling.