U.S. poised to strike military targets in Venezuela in escalation against Maduro regime

The Trump Administration has made the decision to attack military installations inside Venezuela and the strikes could come at any moment, sources with knowledge of the situation told the Miami Herald, as the U.S. prepares to initiate the next stage of its campaign against the Soles drug cartel.

The planned attacks, also reported by the Wall Street Journal, will seek to destroy military installations used by the drug-trafficking organization the U.S. says is headed by Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and run by top members of his regime.

Sources told the Herald that the targets — which could be struck by air in a matter of days or even hours — also aim to decapitate the cartel’s hierarchy. U.S. officials believe the cartel exports around 500 tons of cocaine yearly, split between Europe and the United States.

While sources declined to say whether Maduro himself is a target, one of them said his time is running out.

“Maduro is about to find himself trapped and might soon discover that he cannot flee the country even if he decided to,” the source said. “What’s worse for him, there is now more than one general willing to capture and hand him over, fully aware that one thing is to talk about death, and another to see it coming.”

Washington has doubled the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million—the largest such bounty ever offered—and currently offers $25 million rewards for the capture of some of his top lieutenants, including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who is believed to run cartel operations. Another key regime figure facing U.S. drug-trafficking charges is Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López.

The White House moved Friday morning to tamp down reports that U.S. forces are close to taking action inside Venezuelan territory.

“Unnamed sources don’t know what they’re talking about. Any announcements regarding Venezuela policy would come directly from the President,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said.

When announcing the decision in August to double the $25 million reward on Maduro, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro leads the Cartel de los Soles — Cartel of the Suns — a drug-trafficking organization embedded in Venezuela’s military, and works with groups including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and other transnational criminal networks. Bondi called Maduro “one of the world’s biggest drug traffickers and a threat to our national security,” adding that the bounty increase was aimed at tightening the net around him.

The U.S. military has sharply increased its presence off Venezuela’s coast as part of an operation the White House says is aimed at disrupting drug trafficking and the criminal networks tied to the Caracas regime.

One of President Donald Trump’s first moves after returning to the White House in January 2025 was to direct the State Department to designate certain drug cartels as terrorist and transnational criminal organizations — including Tren de Aragua, and later, the Cartel of the Suns.

In August, the United States began assembling a large-scale deployment in the southern Caribbean Sea near northern Venezuela, creating a Joint Task Force that initially included three destroyers—equipped for air, anti-submarine and missile defense—and an amphibious group of roughly 4,500 troops. The mission has included maritime patrols by P-8 reconnaissance aircraft and long-range surveillance flights to map trafficking routes.

In September the deployment was reinforced with 10 F-35B fighters based at Ceiba Air Base in Puerto Rico and armed MQ-9 Reaper drones at Rafael Hernández Airport on the island. U.S. officials say those aircraft can conduct precision strikes against labs, clandestine airstrips, vehicles or vessels linked to drug operations.

On Oct. 24, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group—including the cruiser USS Normandy and the destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney and USS Roosevelt—into the Caribbean. The carrier strike group, with more than 4,000 personnel and roughly 90 combat aircraft, is described by retired Venezuelan officers who spoke to the Herald as the centerpiece of a “final phase” intended to neutralize leaders of the Cartel of the Suns and Tren de Aragua and strike fixed and mobile targets inside Venezuela.

So far, the force has been used mainly in maritime operations. As of this week, U.S. strikes have targeted fast boats the administration says were carrying narcotics—most intercepted off Venezuela’s coast; the attacks have killed 61 suspected traffickers.

Administration officials say the task force will shift operations ashore because traffickers are now less willing to risk voyages that can be detected and targeted at sea. The sheer scale of the deployment has led many analysts to conclude that the mission’s ultimate aim is the removal of the Maduro regime, though U.S. officials have provided few specifics about any planned actions inside Venezuela.

Most experts doubt the United States intends a prolonged occupation—a stance Trump reiterated during his campaign for a second term. “What he favors are targeted operations, like the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, or attacks on Iran’s nuclear installations,”

Elliott Abrams, who served as U.S. special representative for Venezuela in Trump’s first term, told Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer. “I don’t think he wants something that could drag on. ”Still, a full-scale invasion would be far larger and costlier than the current posture. Even the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama—a smaller, militarily less complex country—required about 30,000 troops, Abrams noted.

Mark F. Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the forces now in the Caribbean are sufficient for strikes and intimidation but not for an invasion.

“There isn’t enough combat power for an invasion,” he said, “but there is plenty for air or missile strikes against the cartels or the Maduro regime.”

Miami Herald