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US President Donald Trump ordered strikes on sites inside Venezuela including military facilities, a reporter for CBS said Saturday as airplanes, loud noises and at least one column of smoke were heard and seen in Caracas, the Latin American country’s capital.
Washington is carrying out strikes inside Venezuela, an unnamed US official told Reuters.
The government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused Washington of attacking civilian and military installations in multiple states.
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. Some could be seen in the distance from various areas of Caracas.
“The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes,” 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.”
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 mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.”
The statement added that President Maduro had “ordered all national defence plans to be implemented” and declared “a state of external disturbance.”
Trump administration officials are aware of the reports of explosions and aircraft over Caracas, CBS’s Jennifer Jacobs posted on X. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The Venezuelan government statement said it rejects "military aggression" by the United States.
The goal of the US attack is to take possession of Venezuelan oil and minerals, Maduro’s government said.
At least seven explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard around 2am local time Saturday in Caracas.
This comes 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 United States to combat drug trafficking.
Maduro also said in a pretaped interview aired 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.
Trump has repeatedly promised land operations in Venezuela, amid efforts to pressure Maduro to leave office, including expanded sanctions, a ramped-up US military presence in the region and more than two dozen strikes on vessels allegedly involved in trafficking drugs in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
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.
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 is 35 and the number of people killed is 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.
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 US.
