Venezuela "Captures CIA Group"

The Venezuelan government has claimed it has captured a group of mercenaries with ties to the CIA amid spiralling tensions with Washington.

The regime of Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president, claimed the men were carrying out a “false flag operation” from waters close to Trinidad and Tobago.

The aim was to “generate a full-scale military confrontation” against Venezuela, the statement said.

No other details were released and the identities of the supposed mercenaries were not revealed.

The US has amassed around 10,000 US troops in the region, a contingent of American marines and at least 10 US warships in the Caribbean.

On Sunday, the USS Gravely, a guided missile destroyer, arrived in the Port of Spain where it is taking part in training exercises with the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force.

The White House said the exercises were part of its efforts to stop drug trafficking, efforts which have already included carrying out controversial air strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

But Maduro claims that they are being carried out “under the coordination, financing, and control” of the US Southern Command, referring to the Florida base which oversees US military operations in Latin America.

In the statement, Caracas likened the exercises to the Gulf of Tonkin incident near Vietnam in 1964 which preceded the US invasion of the Asian nation, and called them “a hostile provocation and a grave threat to the peace of the Caribbean”.

The military manoeuvres were designed to “turn the Caribbean into a space for lethal violence and US imperial domination”, the statement issued by Delcy Rodriguez, the vice-president, said.

The mercenaries that were supposedly arrested were working “with direct information of the American intelligence agency”.

The statement said: “A false flag attack is under way in waters bordering Trinidad and Tobago or from Trinidadian or Venezuelan territory to generate a full military confrontation with our country.”

False flag operations are carried out in such a way that a different party appears responsible, suggesting that America would try to blame somebody else.

Earlier this month it emerged that Trump had secretly authorised the CIA to spy on Venezuela in a major escalation of tensions with Maduro.

Trump also said he was considering land strikes inside Venezuela and on Sunday, Lindsey Graham, a Republican ally of the president, said he expected that would happen soon.

Graham did not rule out American troops on the ground in Venezuela, telling CBS News: “I’ll let the president speak to that.”

Maduro’s government has made allegations of false flag attacks before, including a plan to plant explosives in the US embassy in Caracas in early October.