Venezuela said Monday it thwarted what it called a CIA-linked plot to attack a US warship anchored in Trinidad and blame the government in Caracas.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said in a statement he had advised the government in Trinidad of the alleged false-flag operation.<\/p>\n
The allegation came a day after Venezuela said it had arrested what it called mercenaries linked to the CIA.<\/p>\n
“On our territory a criminal cell financed by the CIA and linked to this covert operation is being dismantled,” Gil said.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump said recently he has approved covert action in Venezuela and is considering launching operations on Venezuelan territory.<\/p>\n
That would be in addition to a US naval deployment in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela, which has seen US forces launch 10 attacks on what Washington called drug smuggling boats, with 43 people killed.<\/p>\n
Venezuela says the ultimate goal of the US deployment is the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n
The US deployment features seven warships which will be joined by the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, the world’s biggest.<\/p>\n
One of these vessels, the USS Gravely, a guided missile destroyer, docked Sunday in the Trinidadian capital Port of Spain for a four-day visit, which will include joint training with local defense forces.<\/p>\n
Venezuela, whose east coast is a short distance from Trinidad, calls this a provocation.<\/p>\n
Gil said he told Trinidad about the alleged plot “to attack a US warship stationed on that island and then blame Venezuela, so as to justify aggression against our country.”<\/p>\n
bc\/jt\/pgf\/dga\/bgs<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Venezuela said Monday it thwarted what it called a CIA-linked plot to attack a US warship anchored in Trinidad and blame the government in Caracas. Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said in a statement he had advised the government in Trinidad of the alleged false-flag operation. The allegation came a day after Venezuela said it had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[101,144,819],"class_list":["post-15781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-diplomacy","tag-us-en","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15784,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15781\/revisions\/15784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}