MYSTERIOUS

Venezuela’s Maduro Blames Colombia for ‘Drone Assassination Attempt’

“This was an assassination attempt, they tried to assassinate me.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has blamed Colombia for what he described as a failed assassination attempt involving drones at a military event where he was speaking Saturday. Explosives detonated near Maduro during a broadcasted speech, according to Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez, but three officials told the Associated Press anonymously that the explosion actually came from a gas tank in an apartment. Rodriguez said seven people were wounded in the attack, but Maduro was uninjured. Maduro later said “everything points” to the incident being part of an assassination plot linked to Colombia and an unnamed group of Venezuelans living in the U.S. state of Florida. Colombian authorities have denied the allegations, according to CNN. Amid widespread doubts over the Venezuelan government’s official account of events, an obscure group calling itself the “National Movement of Soldiers in T-shirts” claimed responsibility for the “attack” on social media. “We demonstrated that they are vulnerable. We didn’t have success today, but it’s just a question of time,” the group said.