The United States provided intelligence and drone support for a Venezuelan military strike on a camp of the Colombian guerrilla group the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Apure state, four US officials told The New York Times. The newspaper reported the American role on 3 November, four days after the attack, saying it had not previously been public who was behind the operation.

The strike hit a camp at Buena Vista del Meta, in Pedro Camejo municipality in south-west Apure, close to the border with Colombia's Vichada department. It came before dawn on Friday 30 October. Residents on nearby farms told the Venezuelan rights group Fundaredes they heard two large explosions that morning and later found bodies scattered around the wrecked site. A Venezuelan military source told the AFP news agency that drones and attack helicopters took part.

Fundaredes, which monitors the border region, counts at least 23 people killed and many more injured. The toll has shifted as more information has emerged: the group first reported nine bodies, AFP later reported at least 19 dead, and Fundaredes then raised its count to 23. The figures have not been independently verified, and no official list of the dead has been published.

Not all of those killed were fighters, according to Fundaredes. Its regional coordinator, Juan Francisco Garcia, told the Times that the dead included pilots, goods suppliers and the relatives or partners of ELN members, among them a woman in her 60s described as the wife of a pilot. Local journalists working with Alianza Rebelde Investiga identified eight of the dead, including two Colombians and four Mexicans, while government identity documents found on some bodies showed that other victims were Venezuelan. Fewer than half of the victims had been identified by Monday 2 November.

The site was described by Fundaredes and by the Times as a known hub for shipping cocaine, and residents said the ELN used it as a distribution centre. The ELN, Colombia's oldest active guerrilla group, has long operated along the Venezuelan border, where it is involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining.

Neither government has officially confirmed the strike or the reported American role. A senior Venezuelan military official confirmed to the Times on 2 November that Venezuela's armed forces carried out the attack, but said he had not been personally briefed on any US involvement. The US State Department referred questions about the operation to the Department of Defense, which said questions should be directed to Venezuela's government. One US official told the Times that the type of drone used is typically operated by US forces, but it remains unclear who piloted the aircraft. A separate Venezuelan military source told AFP the attack had been supported by US intelligence, claiming help from the CIA and the FBI, a claim that has not been independently verified.

The reported cooperation comes as Washington and Caracas are negotiating an agreement that could allow a long-term US military presence in Venezuela. The Times reported on 3 November that the talks, led on the American side by the State Department under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, could produce a status of forces agreement, with troop numbers and locations to be settled later. The Apure strike followed an earlier joint operation in June in which a Venezuelan airstrike killed Hector Guerrero Flores, known as Nino Guerrero, the leader of the Tren de Aragua criminal group, in Bolivar state.

Three questions remain open. No government has owned the operation on the record. No confirmed list of the dead has been released, so the claim that civilians were among the victims rests on the rights group's accounts and interviews with survivors and relatives. And it is not known whether further joint operations will follow: a senior Venezuelan officer told AFP that forces would keep searching the area because they believed more camps were there.