Over the past week or so, U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drones have been spotted carrying increasingly greater numbers of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles on sorties from Puerto Rico. This includes at least one Reaper seen armed with 10 Hellfires, a loadout that does not previously appear to have been disclosed as being an option for these drones. This all now comes amid reports that it was the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that recently carried out a first-of-its-kind covert strike on a target in Venezuela using an unspecified drone.
The unusually large Hellfire loads are the latest in a series of changes in U.S. force posture in the region that go well beyond simply bolstering support to the U.S. military’s ostensibly expanded counter-drug operations. Readers can first get up to speed on this and other recent developments in the Caribbean in our recent reporting here.
CNN was first to report yesterday that a CIA-directed drone strike targeted what has been described as a “port facility” and a “dock” somewhere along Venezuela’s coast sometime earlier this month, citing anonymous sources. The site is said to have been used by the Tren de Aragua criminal organization, which the U.S. government designated as a terrorist organization earlier this year, to smuggle drugs. The New York Times has also now reported that the CIA led this operation, per its own unnamed sources. TWZ has previously highlighted ports and other logistical nodes as among the likely first rungs in a kinetic escalation ladder for operations inside Venezuela.
President Donald Trump had first mentioned the strike publicly in a phone call with WABC radio in New York last Friday. He brought it up again while speaking to the press yesterday alongside visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The President did not say in either case who had carried out the mission. Back in October, Trump said he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela.
When it comes to U.S. MQ-9s in the region, Reapers have been operating from Rafael Hernandez Airport in Aguadilla in Puerto Rico since September. They have generally been seen carrying between two and four AGM-114 Hellfire missiles at a time, as well as range-extending fuel tanks and pods, the latter of which we will come back to later on. This is a very typical combat loadout that has been seen on Reapers operating globally in the past.
However, between December 21 and December 24, MQ-9s started being seen flying from Aguadilla armed with six, eight, and then a whopping 10 AGM-114s. Local spotter Michael Bonet has shared some images of Reapers operating from the airport with larger Hellfire loadouts, seen earlier in this story and below, directly with TWZ.
At least as of 2021, the Air Force had said its Reapers could carry no more than eight Hellfires at once. The MQ-9 can also carry a variety of other munitions, including 500-pound-class Paveway and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) series precision-guided bombs. Only Hellfires have been seen so far on Reapers in Puerto Rico.
The growing loadouts seen on Puerto Rico-based Reapers have also necessitated the use of four-rail launchers. TWZ has so far been unable to find any past imagery of U.S. MQ-9s flying with these quad-launchers. They are commonly seen on U.S. Army AH-64 Apache and U.S. Marine Corps’ AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters, as well as the U.S. Navy’s MH-60R and MH-60S Seahawks. It is worth noting that General Atomics, the MQ-9’s manufacturer, has touted the ability of its Mojave drone to carry loads of up to 16 Hellfires using the four-rail launchers.
Many of the MQ-9s with the larger AGM-114 loads have also been seen carrying a still-unidentified pod. The pod first emerged following the loss of two U.S. Reapers in what was said to have been a mid-air collision over Syria in 2020.
The mysterious pod has since been observed on MQ-9s operating in Romania, Japan, and South Korea. It is typically seen on Reapers that are also fitted with a very large ventral blade antenna under the rear of the fuselage. The pod’s exact purpose remains unconfirmed, but it is assumed to contain additional sensors and/or communications relay and data-sharing capabilities, as you can read more about here.
Why Reapers have begun flying more heavily armed missions from Aguadilla recently is unknown, but the loadouts are at odds with the scope and scale of the existing campaign of strikes on small boats in the region. Between September 2 and December 29, the U.S. military is known to have attacked 31 vessels in the Caribbean Sea, as well as the Eastern Pacific Ocean. This averages out to one strike every four days, a general tempo that does not point to an immediate need for more ordnance per sortie. At least a portion of these missions have been carried out by AC-130J gunships, as well. Questions about the legality of these operations and the underlying intelligence behind them also continue to be very hot topics of debate.
For weeks now, TWZ has already been highlighting an influx of additional U.S. forces into the Caribbean that do not simply align with a bolstering of capacity to support counter-drug operations, or even more recent efforts to seize oil tankers as part of the maximum pressure campaign against the dictatorial regime in Venezuela. This includes the recent arrival of Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) CV-22 Osprey tiltrotors and MC-130J Commando II special operations tanker-transports at Aguadilla to join the MQ-9s. A host of other American air, naval, and ground assets have been flowing into the region for months now, as you can read more about here.
There is also now Trump’s disclosure of at least one covert action against a target inside Venezuela proper. To be clear, much about that operation, including exactly what the target was and what type of drone may have been used to strike it, remains murky.
The CIA is understood to operate a fleet of MQ-9s capable of flying armed missions. Earlier this year, reports said that the Agency’s Reapers had also been flying unarmed sorties over Mexico to snoop on drug cartels. At the same time, Reapers are not the only drones that the CIA has access to. Depending on the exact location and nature of the target, the attack could have been more localized and involved shorter-range armed uncrewed aerial systems, including ones under the control of individuals operating covertly inside the country, but this seems less likely to have been the case.
The aforementioned descriptions of the target in Venezuela as being a “port facility” and a “dock” would seem to point to something of substantial size. This, in turn, could well have necessitated the employment of a relatively large amount of ordnance, such as what we’ve recently been seeing on Puerto Rico-based MQ-9s, to ensure adequate destruction.
It is also worth noting here that there have long been strong indications of some form of overlap in both ownership and operational control of drones, including MQ-9s, between the CIA and the U.S. military’s secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), as well as the U.S. Air Force. JSOC has been directly involved in at least some of the strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean since September. In response to CNN‘s report, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), to which JSOC is technically assigned, did notably send that outlet an on-the-record statement denying any involvement in the recent strike in Venezuela.
More clandestine assets could still have been used instead, but there also would have been no real need to do so if something like a Reaper could have accomplished the job with a reasonable level of survivability. The strike on the target in Venezuela, which did not prompt any kind of immediate response on the part of Venezuelan authorities, at least that we know of, raises additional questions about the effectiveness of the country’s air defenses. Whether or not any standoff electronic warfare support, of which there is plenty in the region currently in the form of Navy EA-18 Growler jets and at least one Air Force EC-130H Compass Call plane, was utilized during the operation is unknown, but this seems likely to have been the case. As TWZ has explored in detail in the past, Venezuela’s air defense capabilities are limited, but could certainly present real threats.
As already noted, it is not otherwise clear what new mission requirements and/or intelligence streams may have fueled the decision to begin arming MQ-9s flying from Puerto Rico with the significantly larger loads of Hellfires. The need to respond to drug cartels sending out larger waves of boats in order to survive, or to provide armed overwatch due to concerns about surface threats from small boats, are possibilities, but there are no indications so far of either of these being the case.
As a general point, taking direct action against a target in Venezuela does mark another significant escalation, regardless of how it was carried out. The full extent of plans now for this covert campaign, and whether it might be intended as a prelude to overt action, remain to be seen.
At the same time, the expanding Hellfire loads on Air Force MQ-9s flying from Puerto Rico add to the growing evidence that U.S. operations in the region, and with respect to Venezuela, specifically, are entering a major new phase.
Special thanks again to Michael Bonet for sharing his pictures of MQ-9 Reapers operating recently from Rafael Hernandez Airport with us.
Howard Altman contributed to this story.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com