Venezuela’s government has accused the United States of launching attacks on civilian and military sites across several states following reports of at least seven explosions and sightings of low-flying aircraft over Caracas, the nation’s capital.
The Pentagon directed inquiries to the White House, which has yet to release a statement. In anticipation of the explosions that erupted around 1:50 a.m. on Saturday (5:50 p.m. AEDT), the Federal Aviation Authority prohibited U.S. commercial flights from entering Venezuelan airspace, citing “ongoing military activity.”
“One explosion was so intense that it shook my window,” reported CNN correspondent Osmary Hernandez.
In the aftermath, smoke was seen billowing from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, and another military facility in the city experienced a power outage.
Residents from different neighborhoods poured into the streets, with some visible from various vantage points around Caracas.
“The entire ground trembled. It was terrifying. We heard explosions and aircraft in the distance,” recounted Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice still shaken.
She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party.
“We felt like the air was hitting us.”
Venezuela’s government has called on its supporters to take to the streets.
“People to the streets!” the government said in a statement.
“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 Nicolás Maduro had “ordered all national defence plans to be implemented” and declared “a state of external disturbance”.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for the United Nations to “meet immediately”.
“Right now they are bombing Caracas. Alert the world, they have attacked Venezuela,” Petro wrote on X.
Petro did not specify how he knew bombing had occurred or who “they” were. Colombia is one hour behind Venezuela’s capital Caracas.
The blasts come as the US military has been targeting, in recent days, alleged drug-smuggling boats. On Friday, Venezuela said it was open to negotiating an agreement with the US to combat drug trafficking.
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.
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.
US President Donald Trump for months had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land. The US has also seized sanctioned oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, and Trump ordered a blockade of others in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American 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 was 35 and the number of people killed was at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.
They followed a major buildup 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.
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.
– Reported with Associated Press and CNN
