Daily London
At least seven explosions and low-flying aircraft have been heard in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, in the early hours of the morning.
It was not immediately clear what was behind the explosions, which began about 1.50am on Saturday (5.50pm AEDT).
“One was so strong, my window was shaking after it,” CNNE correspondent Osmary Hernandez said.
People in various neighbourhoods rushed to the streets. Some could be seen in the distance from various areas of Caracas.
“The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes in the distance,” said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling.
She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party.
“We felt like the air was hitting us.”
Venezuelan state television did not interrupt its programming and aired a report on Venezuelan music and art.
Venezuela’s government, the Pentagon and the White House have not yet responded to requests for comment.
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.
The South American country’s President Nicolás 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
