Saturday 03/January/2026 – 10:03 AM
On Saturday morning, explosions and strong sounds were heard, in addition to planes flying at low altitude, in the capital Venezuelan Caracas, in light of reports that US President Donald Trump has issued orders to launch strikes against the South American country, according to The Guardian.
Explosions sound in Caracas
According to the report, the southern parts of the city witnessed a power outage.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, the president of neighboring Colombia, Gustavo Petro, said on social media that Venezuela was under attack.
He wrote on the X platform that Caracas is currently being bombarded with missiles, calling for an immediate emergency session of the UN Security Council.
Shortly thereafter, CBS News reported that Trump had ordered the attacks, including targeting military facilities. There was no response from the White House or the US Department of Defense to requests for comment.
The Associated Press reported that at least 7 explosions were heard around 2 a.m. local time, and that residents of several neighborhoods rushed to the streets.
Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, said the entire ground shook, describing what happened as horrific, adding that they heard explosions and planes in the distance.
Eyewitnesses reported smoke billowing from two major military facilities in Caracas: the La Carlota military airport, located in the heart of the city, and the Fuerte Teona military base, where Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has long been believed to reside. Another important airport east of Caracas, Higuerote, also appeared to have been attacked.
These explosions come after a five-month American pressure campaign against Maduro, which many analysts believe aims to overthrow the Venezuelan leader. Since August, Trump has ordered a massive military reinforcement off the northern coast of Venezuela, and carried out a series of bloody air strikes against what he described as drug smuggling boats.
Trump had repeatedly pledged to carry out ground operations inside Venezuela, as part of efforts to pressure Maduro to leave power, which included expanding sanctions, strengthening the US military presence in the region, and carrying out more than twenty strikes targeting ships allegedly involved in drug smuggling in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
The United States also confiscated sanctioned oil tankers off the Venezuelan coast, and Trump ordered a blockade on other tankers, in a move that seemed aimed at tightening the stranglehold on the economy of the South American country.
