‘Two drones’ used in strike on Venezuela leader
The Venezuelan Government made more arrests in connection with an apparent assassination attempt on President Nicola´s Maduro, as the crisisplagued nation braced for a possibility of wider crackdown on dissent.
Interior Minister Ne´ stor Luis Reverol said six “terrorists” had been detained, a day after the Government said drones carrying explosives had targeted Maduro in the midst of a nationally televised address.
Maduro was unharmed in the incident, which officials said injured seven soldiers in an extraordinary scene captured on video.
The President accused “far right” extremists linked to Colombia and Venezuelan dissidents living in the United States for the alleged attack.
Although some Opposition leaders said they doubted the Government’s version, two residents of a nearby building said that they saw the drone explode. “We saw the drone that looked like the size of half a bicycle. It came from the sky and we thought it was a boy playing with it,” said Pedro Pen˜a, 62, who was in an apartment with Gladys Miquelena, 56. Seconds after they saw it, it exploded. “We were scared. It sounded like a bomb.”
There had been reports of a gas leak and explosion, but witnesses dismissed those. “It was not a gas leak. We have direct gas,” said Catherine Pita, 24, a neighbour. “It was a drone that hit the building and caused the fire. One girl was hit by flying glass on the head and was taken to the hospital.”
Reverol said there had been two drones, which he identified as M600s. Neither, he said, reached its intended target area before detonating.
Two separate videos, posted on Twitter, showed drones at the scene; one crashed into a building and the other exploded in mid-air.
Maduro went so far as to blame Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos by name for the attack, prompting Santos’ office to issue an “emphatic denial.”.
A video of the incident showed first lady Cilia Flores looking up from beside Maduro and putting her hand to her heart, appearing frightened, after an apparent explosion. Maduro is then abruptly cut off during his address. Soldiers, as well as figures standing behind barricades, run to one side.
“From the footage of the stage and the military scattering, it looks like they saw something,” said David Smilde, a Venezuela expert with the Washington Office on Latin America, a think-tank.
“But if the Government or someone else does not put out some footage of these drones or the explosions, it should be considered highly suspect. They film everything they do from multiple angles. So it is hard to imagine that they would not have footage of this if it actually happened.”
Venezuela’s Opposition leaders cast doubts on the Government’s version of the attack. They accused it of looking for an excuse to round up army deserters while distracting the public from an economic crisis in which hunger and malnutrition are growing and disease is spreading.
Seven journalists covering the story were stopped by security forces and interrogated for hours, said Venezuela’s National Union of Press Workers. All were freed, but some had their cameras confiscated.
“He’ll use the incident to radicalise; likely, to purge the military, strengthen his personal guard, and embellish the narrative about being under attack from the US and Colombia and others in a bid for sympathy and support,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice-president of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas.