BREAKING: US President Donald Trump posted on social media that the US has “captured” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in overnight attacks. This has not been confirmed by the Venezuelan government at the time if posting.

THE United States bombed Venezuela overnight, with explosions rocking the capital Caracas and targets in the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira.

The Venezuelan government ordered “all national defence plans to be implemented” and called for the people of the country to mobilise to fend off a “colonial war” aiming at regime change, in co-ordination with the “fascist oligarchy” that has always sought to reverse the Bolivarian revolution. Given the explicit threats of an attack from the US in recent months, Venezuela has distributed arms to popular militias around the country.

The Pentagon and White House have been tight-lipped about the attacks, with the main confirmation simply a Federal Aviation Authority warning to commercial aircraft to steer clear of the Latin American country because of “military activity.” Reports aired by some US broadcasters that US President Donald Trump has ordered a land invasion have not been confirmed.

“The whole ground shook… this is horrible,” Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling, told the Associated Press. She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party. “We felt like the air was hitting us.”

Mr Trump has built up a huge armada off Venezuela’s coast and carried out a lethal campaign of bombings against boats in the Caribbean, accusing them without evidence of smuggling drugs. Officially the US accuses the government of President Nicolas Maduro of being involved in drug-smuggling too, but in online rants the US leader has revealed his real aim is to restore US corporate control of the country’s oil reserves, the largest proven reserves on Earth. The US boarded and stole two oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude last month.

A recent National Security Strategy published by the White House called on the United States to reassert the Monroe Doctrine — which calls for US dominance in the western hemisphere and the exclusion of all “non-hemispheric” powers from it.

“The Bolivarian government calls upon all social and political forces of the country to activate mobilisation plans and to repudiate this imperialist attack,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement.

“The people of Venezuela and their Bolivarian National Armed Force, in perfect popular–military–police unity, are fully deployed to guarantee sovereignty and peace.

“At the same time, the Bolivarian Diplomacy of Peace will submit the corresponding complaints before the United Nations security council, the secretary-general of the United Nations, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and the Non-Aligned Movement, demanding the condemnation of and accountability from the government of the United States.”