America has started military attacks inside Venezuela.
The attacks, which began around 1 am local time, are targeting military installations and bases in and around Caracas, the capital.
Locals say that seven huge explosions were heard after military helicopters, flying at low altitude , made sorties across areas in Caracas, Miranda, Aragua and Tinua.
The attacks followed the massive build up of American military presence in coasts around Venezuela with 15,000 troops and the largest aircraft carrier in the world, Gerald Ford.
American President Donald Trump had labelled the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, a hard drug trade maestro, but provided no proof.
Maduro himself had repeatedly denied any hard drug links, and instead, accused Trump of wanting to destabilise his administration to enable it access his country’ s huge oil reserves on American terms.
Venezuela recently discovered the single largest crude oil reserve in the world in its territory.
There were no accounts of the damage caused by the attacks, and no words on the fate of the Defence Minister whose home was targeted in the strikes.
Officials of the Trump administration had repeatedly spoken of regime change, the euphemism for the undemocratic overthrow of the Maduro government.
Maduro, who had yet to appear in public since the strikes began, in a statement issued by proxy, declared a state of emergency and directed the mobilisation of volunteers who had been trained for defence purposes.
Mexico, Brazil and Colombia have strongly condemned the attacks .
The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, called for an urgent meeting of the Organization of American States and the United Nations (UN) on the matter.
American media, CBS, quoting White House officials and those of Pentagon, confirmed that the strikes were by American military.
