Caracas
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n A CNN team witnessed several explosions and heard the sounds of aircraft early Saturday in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, and reported that some areas of the city were without electricity.\n <\/p>\n
\n Venezuela\u2019s government condemned what it said was a \u201cvery serious grave military aggression\u201d by the US against multiple parts of the country after the explosions were reported in Caracas and other locations.\n <\/p>\n
\n It accused the US of carrying out an attack on Caracas and the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira, and said President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro had signed a state of emergency and ordered all national defense plans to be implemented \u201cat the appropriate time and under the appropriate circumstances.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN has reached out to the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and US Southern Command for comment on the explosions. The Pentagon and Southern Command referred enquiries to the White House.\n <\/p>\n
\n The White House has not yet responded to CNN\u2019s request.\n <\/p>\n
\n The first blast witnessed by the CNN team was recorded at approximately 1.50am local time (0.50aET).\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cOne was so strong, my window was shaking after it,\u201d CNNE correspondent Osmary Hernandez said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Several areas of the city were without power and CNN journalists in the Venezuelan capital could hear sound of aircraft after the explosions.\n <\/p>\n
\n The cause of the explosions was unclear.\n <\/p>\n
\n One video obtained and verified by CNN showed two plumes of smoke rising into the night sky amid city lights. An orange glow can be seen at the base of one of the plumes. Then a flash in another location is briefly seen, followed by a dull booming sound.\n <\/p>\n
\n Venezuelan news outlets Efecto Cocuyo and Tal Cual Digital reported explosions were also heard in La Guaira state north of Caracas and on the country\u2019s coast, and at Higuerote, a city on the coast in Miranda state.\n <\/p>\n
\n The president of neighboring Colombia called for the United Nations to \u201cmeet immediately\u201d following the reports of the explosions.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey are bombing with missiles,\u201d Gustavo Petro wrote on X. \u201cThe OAS (Organization of American States) and the UN (United Nations) must meet immediately.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Petro did not specify how he knew bombing had occurred. He did not specify who \u2018they\u2019 were.\n <\/p>\n
\n US President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that the US is preparing to take new action against alleged drug trafficking networks in Venezuela and that strikes on land will start \u201csoon.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump\u2019s pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro has included strikes destroying more than 30 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in what the US has described as a counter-narcotics campaign. Trump last month ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers coming to and leaving Venezuela.\n <\/p>\n
\n The CIA carried out a drone strike in December on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, CNN reported last month, citing sources, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that country.\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump last month said the United States took out a \u201cbig facility\u201d as part of a pressure campaign against Venezuela, but when pressed by reporters on December 29, he declined to say whether the US military or an entity like the CIA was behind the operation.\n <\/p>\n
\n During a Christmas Eve phone call to troops aboard the USS Gerald Ford, which Trump recently ordered deployed to the Caribbean Sea, Trump called the region an \u201cinteresting place\u201d to be and said the US would be \u201cgoing after the land.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump in October said that he authorized the CIA to operate inside Venezuela to clamp down on illegal flows of migrants and drugs from the South American nation.\n <\/p>\n
\n This is a developing story and will be updated.\n <\/p>\n
\n Alejandra Jaramillo, Isaac Yee, Michael Rios, and Laura Sharman contributed to this report\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caracas \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 A CNN team witnessed several explosions and heard the sounds of aircraft early Saturday in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-385176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}