At least seven explosions and low-flying aircraft have been heard in Caracas
Donald Trump has been accused of ordered strikes on sites in Venezuela amid growing tensions with the United States over claims of drug trafficking. At least seven explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard early on Saturday morning (January 3) in the Venezuelan capital Caracas.
The country’s government has accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations in multiple states. US officials told CBS News that Mr Trump ordered strikes on sites in Venezuela, which included military facilities, while an anonymous American official told Reuters that the US is carrying out strikes on Venezuela.
The Pentagon referred requests for comment to the White House, which did not immediately respond, according to Associated Press. It comes as the US military has been targeting, in recent weeks, alleged drug-smuggling boats.
US President Donald Trump had threatened for months that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land. Meanwhile, the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) banned US commercial flights in Venezuela airspace over ‘ongoing military activity’ ahead of explosions in Caracas.
Calls to the US Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the region, went unanswered. The FAA’s warning, known as a ‘notice to airmen’, came shortly after 1am on the east coast of the US.
It warned all commercial and private US pilots that the airspace over Venezuela and the small island nation of Curacao, just off the coast of the country to the north, was off-limits ‘due to safety-of-flight risks associated with ongoing military activity’. The warnings are designed to alert pilots to a variety of dangers.
Smoke could be seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas. Another military installation in the capital was without power. People in various neighbourhoods rushed to the streets as the explosions sounded at 2am local time.
“The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes in the distance,” said office worker Carmen Hidalgo, 21. “We felt like the air was hitting us.”
Venezuela’s government, in the statement, called on its supporters to take to the streets. “People to the streets!” the statement said. “The Bolivarian Government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilisation plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.”
The statement added that President Nicolas Maduro had ‘ordered all national defence plans to be implemented’ and declared ‘a state of external disturbance’.
On Friday, Venezuela said it was open to negotiating an agreement with the United States to combat drug trafficking. Mr Maduro also said in a pre-taped interview aired on Thursday that the US wants to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through the monthslong pressure campaign that began with a massive military deployment to the Caribbean Sea in August.
Mr Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism in the US. The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels in what was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US began strikes on boats in September.
The US has also seized sanctioned oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, and Mr Trump ordered a blockade of others in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the country’s economy. The US military has been attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since early September.
As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration. They followed a major build-up of American forces in the waters off South America, including the arrival in November of the nation’s most advanced aircraft carrier, which added thousands more troops to what was already the largest military presence in the region in generations.
Mr Trump has justified the boat strikes as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US and asserted that the US is engaged in an ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels. Meanwhile, Iranian state television reported on the explosions in Caracas on Saturday, showing images of the Venezuelan capital. Iran has been close to Venezuela for years, in part thanks to their shared enmity of the U.S.
