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<\/p>\nCARACAS, Venezuela (AP) \u2014 U.S. President Donald Trump says Venezuela\u2019s Nicolas Maduro has been captured after US conducted a \u2018large scale strike\u2019 on the country.<\/p>\n
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP\u2019s earlier story follows below.<\/p>\n
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) \u2014 At least seven explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through the capital of Venezuela early Saturday, with the government of leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro accusing the United States of attacking civilian and military installations following a\u00a0monthslong pressure campaign.<\/p>\n
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ban on U.S. commercial flights in Venezuelan airspace because of \u201congoing military activity\u201d ahead of the explosions in Caracas. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. about its role, the targets or the purpose of the strikes.<\/p>\n
The explosions in Caracas sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report hearing and seeing the blasts. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties. The apparent attack lasted less than 30 minutes, but it was unclear if more actions were ahead. Two hours later, parts of the city remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.<\/p>\n
Smoke could be seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without power.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes,\u201d said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling. She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party. \u201cWe felt like the air was hitting us.\u201d<\/p>\n
No immediate response from the US<\/p>\n
The explosions come as the Trump administration has escalated a pressure campaign on Maduro, who has been charged with narco-terrorism in the United States. The CIA was behind\u00a0a 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 U.S. began strikes in September.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump for months had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land following months of attacks on boats accused of carrying drugs. Maduro has decried the U.S. military operations as a thinly veiled\u00a0effort to oust him from power.<\/p>\n
Pentagon referred requests for comment to the White House, which didn\u2019t immediately return calls or emails seeking comment. Calls to the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the region, went unanswered.<\/p>\n
Trump is at his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he has spent the last two weeks for the holiday season. His public schedule showed he was set to receive an intelligence briefing on Friday evening, hours before the reported strikes. He offered no immediate comment on social media.<\/p>\n
Venezuelan president calls people to action<\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s government called on its supporters to take to the streets.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople to the streets!\u201d it said in a statement. \u201cThe Bolivarian Government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement added that Maduro had \u201cordered all national defense plans to be implemented\u201d and declared \u201ca state of external disturbance.\u201d That state of emergency gives him the power to suspend people\u2019s rights and expand the role of the armed forces.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The website of the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, a post that has been closed since 2019, issued a warning to American citizens in the country, saying it was \u201caware of reports of explosions in and around Caracas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cU.S. citizens in Venezuela should shelter in place,\u201d the warning said.<\/p>\n
The FAA warned all commercial and private U.S. 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 \u201cdue to safety-of-flight risks associated with ongoing military activity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brewing tensions<\/p>\n
The explosions come amid the Trump administration’s escalating military actions in the region. The U.S. has\u00a0seized sanctioned oil tankers\u00a0off the coast of Venezuela, and Trump\u00a0ordered a blockade\u00a0of others in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
The U.S. 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.<\/p>\n
They followed a major\u00a0buildup of American forces\u00a0in the waters off South America, including the arrival in November of\u00a0the nation\u2019s most advanced aircraft carrier, which added thousands more troops to what was already the largest military presence in the region in generations.<\/p>\n
Trump has\u00a0justified the boat strikes\u00a0as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S. and asserted that the U.S. is engaged in an\u00a0\u201carmed conflict\u201d with drug cartels.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Venezuela said it was open to negotiating an agreement with the U.S. to\u00a0combat drug trafficking.<\/p>\n
Maduro also said\u00a0in a pretaped interview\u00a0aired Thursday that the U.S. wants to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through the pressure campaign.<\/p>\n
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 due to their shared enmity of the U.S.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Toropin reported from Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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