Venezuela live: National emergency declared as Trump-ordered airstrikes hit Caracas

Donald Trump ordered the US military to conduct strikes on the Venezuelan capital of Caracas early Saturday morning, making good on his escalating threats against its leader Nicolás Maduro.

US officials confirmed to both CBS News and Fox News that the president had given the go ahead days before the strikes.

Read the Daily Mail’s full report below:

The United States military was behind a series of strikes against the Venezuelan capital Caracas on Saturday, US media reported.

The White House and Pentagon have not commented on the explosions and reports of aircraft over the city.

US media outlets CBS News and Fox News reported unnamed Trump administration officials confirming that US forces were involved.

Columbian president Gustavo Petro has said Venezuela is ‘under attack’ in a post on social media.

‘At this moment they are bombing Caracas,’ he said.

‘Alert everyone — they have attacked Venezuela. They are bombing with missiles. The (Organization of American States) and the UN must meet immediately.’

Venezuela’s government has accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations in multiple states.

Its communications ministry told The New York Times it ‘rejects, repudiates, and denounces’ US military aggression.

The ⁠Pentagon referred questions to the White House, which declined to comment.

The Venezuelan government in its statement said the goal of the attack is for the United ‍States to take ⁠possession of the country’s oil and minerals.

It added that the United States ‘will not succeed’ in taking the resources.

US commercial flights have been banned in Venezuela due to ‘ongoing military activity’.

The warning from the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) came shortly after 1am on the east coast of the US.

It warned all commercial and private US 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 ‘due to safety-of-flight risks associated with ongoing military activity’.

The warnings are designed to alert pilots to a variety of dangers.

Venezuela’s government has 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 Nicolás Maduro had ‘ordered all national defense plans to be implemented” and declared ‘a state of external disturbance.’

Office worker Carmen Hidalgo, 21, described the moment explosions rocked the Venezuelan capital.

She said: ‘The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes in the distance.

‘We felt like the air was hitting us.’

Huge columns of smoke and large explosions could be seen rising above Caracaras in the early hours of this morning.

The blasts came amid growing tensions between Trump and Maduro’s regime, with the first military land strike on Venezuela taking place on Christmas Eve.

Multiple sources said the CIA carried out the first US land strike in Venezuela that day on a port facility believed to have been storing drugs bound for America.

Trump confirmed the Christmas Eve strike on Monday, days after he casually discussed in a radio interview the attack on a facility ‘where the ship comes from.’

People in various neighborhoods of Caracas rushed to the streets after aircraft and explosions were heard.

Airplanes, loud noises and at least one column of smoke have been heard and seen in the Venezuelan capital Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning.

‘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.’

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