Unknowns of the land attack announced by Trump amid tension with Venezuela

Redacción América.- A ground bombardment announced by U.S. President Donald Trump has once again heightened tensions surrounding the military deployment that his country maintains in Caribbean waters, but it has also opened up various questions about an incident that Venezuela is silent about, while its neighbor, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, assures that it took place on Venezuelan soil.

An Announcement About Venezuela, Trump-Style

The first mention of this attack took place on December 26th in the most unorthodox way. John Catsimatidis, a New York billionaire who hosts radio shows on the WBAC station, interrupted his program to say that he had the US ruler on the phone and put him on the air. At one point in the impromptu interview, Trump says that Chavismo in Venezuela has stolen oil from his country and filled it with immigrants from prisons, including members of the Tren de Aragua gang, who in turn “send drugs” to the United States.

Catsimatidis then asks why the Democrats are complaining that Washington is destroying supposed drug boats and that’s when Trump says: “I don’t know if you read it or saw it, they have a big plant or a big facility from where they send, you know, where the boats come from. Two nights ago we destroyed it. So we hit them very hard.” The comment seems to refer to the Tren de Aragua, but does not directly mention the “Venezuelan territory” and is overlooked by Catsimatidis, who immediately changes the subject to talk about interest rates or the price of gasoline. The rest of the media ignores its existence for another two days, and on December 29th they begin to report the comment, which would point to the first US attack on Venezuelan territory, which Trump had been warning about for some time as part of his pressure campaign on the government of Nicolás Maduro.

What other information is known about the bombing

On the same Monday, the media asked Trump in a press conference about his comment, but the president, who does not deny that the attack has been carried out on Venezuelan territory, insists on barely offering details. It says it will not explain who carried out the bombing, that it was “along the coast” and that “there was a large explosion in the area of the pier where the boats load with drugs.” “They load the boats with drugs, so we attack all the boats and now we attack the area. That’s the operations zone, that’s where they do it, and that zone no longer exists,” he added. Neither the Pentagon (which has published images of each of the bombings of the boats it accuses of transporting drugs), nor the White House, and not even the Venezuelan government have yet made any comment on the attack, while no expert in satellite image analysis has yet managed to find the supposed bombed dock on the Venezuelan coast. At the last minute on Monday, CNN exclusively reported that the attack was carried out by the CIA with a drone, and that the attack affected a port in Venezuelan territory used by the Tren de Aragua that was empty at the time, so no one died in the operation.

Maduro denounces “fake news” in the U.S.

Without alluding to the statements of his counterpart, the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, commented on Tuesday that in the United States “fake news” is spread, without mentioning any in particular.

For his part, the Venezuelan Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, highlighted, in another act, that “imperialism” does not rest in seeking to “fracture” the Armed Forces. “They will not rest in trying to divide us, to fracture us, to cut us, to segment us and that is practically impossible,” insisted Padrino López during an activity with military personnel in a barracks in Caracas. In the South American country, rumors also circulated on social media linking the supposed attack announced by Trump to a fire that affected the Primazol chemical plant, which occurred at midnight on December 24. The company, located in the industrial zone of San Francisco, a neighboring town of Maracaibo, the capital of Zulia state (west, bordering Colombia), denied the versions in a statement, assuring that the incident was caused by an “electrical accident” in its wiring system. However, President Petro insisted on his X account on the versions spread on social media about the alleged attack on a factory in Venezuela. «We know that Trump bombed a factory in Maracaibo; we fear that they mix the coca paste there to turn it into cocaine, taking advantage of the location on Lake Maracaibo», stated the Colombian ruler, without providing evidence.