What is known about the "ATTACK" About Nicolas Maduro president of Venezuela on August 4, 2018 (VIDEOS AND PHOTOGRAPHS)

I explain what is known until this moment of what the Venezuelan government claims was a drone attack against President Maduro and the dark group that through a Twitter account claimed the facts.

President Nicolás Maduro has just assured that the time has come for Venezuela's economic recovery when he suddenly interrupts his speech and looks up, with a worried expression.

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Behind him, his wife, Cilia Flores, is startled and makes the instinctive gesture of those who react to the danger, his gaze - and that of almost everyone who accompanied the president on the stage - also fixed in the sky.

The cameras that broadcast Maduro's speech live on the occasion of the 81st anniversary of the founding of the Bolivarian National Guard on Avenida Bolivar in Caracas are shaken and the audio is interrupted for a moment.

Then you can see how part of the soldiers who attend the commemoration break ranks and run in several directions, before the transmission is permanently interrupted.

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Photographs published later by the Xinhua agency suggest that by then the Venezuelan president's security team has already deployed several shields to protect the president.

That would explain the shouts of "Cap, Cap, Cap up Castle" and "Up, my commander" that can be heard at the end of the television broadcast, amid the noise of nearby vehicle alarms.

It was 5:41 pm on Saturday in Caracas (00:41 GMT this Sunday).

We explain what is known until this moment of what the Venezuelan government claims was a drone attack against President Maduro.

What the government says: "drones with explosives"

According to the information minister of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez, when the act was about to conclude "there were heard reports that the investigations clearly establish that they corresponded to drone-type flying devices".

According to the official spokesman were "several flying devices that contained an explosive charge that detonated in the vicinity of the presidential platform and in some areas of the parade."

"A flying device exploded in front of me, a big explosion, comrades," Maduro later recounted.

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"At first I came to think that something had happened with a pyrotechnic game, with some explosive of these end of act," the president confessed.

"But I noticed that all the soldiers were firm, and in that same moment of seconds, microseconds, there was a second explosion, behind some platforms where they were familiar and official, on my right side, which is what you see in the images that there are people who run away because they feel the explosive wave, "the president added, in a televised message to the nation broadcast late at night.

Before the minister Rodriguez had said that "all the work that has been done afterwards has already established with evidence that it is an attack against the figure of the constitutional president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, who tranquility of all and of all has been completely unharmed. "

The official, however, reported that as a result of the detonations seven members of the Bolivarian National Guard who were in the parade were injured.

There are photographs in which at least one national guard is seen with what appears to be a slight head injury while being aided by his companions.

There are also images showing the black spots of what appears to have been an explosion in a nearby building, as well as members of the security forces and intelligence services inspecting it closely.

And in the middle of the night Maduro himself reported that "some of the perpetrators of the attack have been captured (...) and are already processed."

"Some of the evidence has already been captured, and I am not going to go further, but the investigation is already well advanced, and without a doubt we have cleared the situation in record time and it is an attempt to kill me," the president said.

Later, Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced that the captured would be presented publicly on Monday.

Why is there anyone who doubts about the official version

This is not the first time that President Maduro denounces an attack against him and to this day has not presented evidence to support his accusations, so despite the TV images many have expressed doubts about the alleged attack.

The skepticism is explained partly because the official broadcast of the event does not see any drone, and several media have also collected statements from people present at the commemoration who say they have not seen artifacts of this type.

The Venezuelan opposition was also skeptical of the official versions. "It remains to be seen if it was really an attack, a fortuitous accident or one of the other versions that circulate through social networks," the Frente Amplio Venezuela Libre said in a statement.

"The responsible thing would be to wait for the pertinent investigations to be carried out, but it is very difficult to believe what the bureaucrats of the regime say", he was there.

For the time being, the Spanish newspaper El País quoted "a soldier present at the event, who was a few meters away from Maduro" who said he had not seen drones, although he had heard "an explosion like a mortar" and at a certain height "

While the AP news agency says that three firefighters who were present at the scene said the noise was caused by the explosion of a gas tank in a nearby apartment.

However, a police officer who asked not to be identified told AFP that the drones could have been thrown from the apartment, which would have burned down after the explosion of one of them.

And the official version of a drone attack coincides with that of a little-known opposition group called the National Movement of Flannel Soldiers, which claimed responsibility for the attack through its Twitter account.

Who are they and what do the Flannel Soldiers say?

According to the account of the movement, which has not offered any evidence of its connection with the incidents on Saturday, his goal was to bring two drones loaded with explosives C4 to the presidential box, but "snipers of the guard of honor knocked down the drones before arriving to the objective."

"We show that they are vulnerable, it was not achieved today but it is a matter of time", is also read in one of the messages published by #SoldadoDfranela, an account created in March 2014 that has about 95,000 followers.

The National Movement of Flannel Soldiers claims to have been formed four years ago to "bring together all the resistance groups at the national level to achieve effectiveness in our fight against the dictatorship."

And through its iconography, the group seems to claim links with Óscar Pérez, the former police officer who in June 2017 attacked the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior from a helicopter and several months later was killed riddled in a special forces operation .

It is not clear, however, if the group is also the author of a statement on what appears to have been dubbed "Operation Fénix," initially broadcast through Patricia Poleo, an award-winning Venezuelan journalist known for her criticism of the government.

The statement made public by Poleo through its YouTube channel, just under three hours after the attack, is simply subscribed by a group of "officers, non-commissioned officers, classes and soldiers" of the Venezuelan army "in an active situation or active reserve ".

And, in the same, the military assumptions regret not having achieved their objectives, but they assure that they will not rest until "achieving the return of the Constitution and democracy", among other political demands.

"Today we could not, but we will continue in our struggle, because the Bolivarian National Armed Forces have the function of guaranteeing the independence, the sovereignty of the Nation, the integrity of the territory and internal public order," the statement said.

Who does the Venezuelan government accuse?

At first the Venezuelan Minister of Information, Jorge Rodríguez, said that the attack against Maduro is a sign "of the desperation that we have been noticing in some spokesmen of the Venezuelan ultra right."

According to the official, the facts "show no more than the hatred that we have permanently denounced of those who, being defeated in the political terrain, being defeated in the economic war, being defeated on all fronts (...) do not stop to resort to criminal, brutal, devious practices. "

And then President Maduro said he had no doubt that "everything points to the Venezuelan ultra right in alliance with the Colombian far right and that the name of Juan Manuel Santos is behind this attack."

"I have no doubts, it is the murderous savagery of the Colombian oligarchy, and I am sure that all the evidence will appear, but the first elements of investigation point to Bogotá," the Venezuelan president said.

"It is that Juan Manuel Santos hands over the presidency on August 7 and can not leave without giving a joke to Venezuela, without making him a wickedness, a damage to Venezuela," he denounced.

What the Colombian government says

The Venezuelan accusations have been sharply denied by the Colombian government, which called Maduro's accusations "absurd" and "lacking any foundation."

"It is customary for the Venezuelan president to permanently blame Colombia for any type of situation, we demand respect for President Juan Manuel Santos, for the government and for the Colombian people," the Colombian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

And President Santos' High Presidential Communications Adviser, Camilo Granada, also denied the version.
"That has no basis, the president is dedicated to the baptism of his granddaughter Celeste and not to overthrow foreign governments," said Granada, in a message sent to foreign correspondents in the country.

Chronology of the armed incidents against the Maduro government:

Since taking office in 2013, the national president suffered three "attacks"
President Nicolás Maduro has faced three armed incidents since he took office in 2013: the "bombing" with explosives denounced on Saturday, the assault on a military unit and the rebellion of former policeman Oscar Pérez.

• "Attempt"

Maduro escaped unharmed from an "attack" with drones loaded with explosives during a military ceremony in Caracas, denounced the president, blaming the "far right" - as the opposition refers to - the outgoing president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, exiled in the United States.

"This is an attempt to kill me, they have tried to kill me, I have no doubt that the name of Juan Manuel Santos is after this attack," said Maduro.

The president announced the capture of several of those involved, without specifying their identities. He said that one of the charges exploded in front of his grandstand and another behind the guest one.

The government reported seven wounded soldiers.

Part of what happened could be observed by the state television VTV.

Maduro was about to finish his speech when a noise caught his attention and he looked up, as did his wife, Cilia Flores, and the defense minister, General Vladimir Padrino López.

Before the channel cut the transmission was seen dozens of soldiers who broke ranks and ran disorderly.
In photographs released by the press, the bodyguards of the president are observed covering him with bulletproof protectors.

• Attack on a strong military

On august 6, 2017, a score of men, including three soldiers, attacked the fort of Paramacay in the city of Valencia (north).

The men clashed with the soldiers who guarded the facilities for more than three hours: two of the attackers were killed, eight arrested, and the rest escaped with weapons.

The group was commanded by ex-Captain of the Armed Forces Juan Carlos Caguaripano, arrested with another of the attackers on August 11.

Before the assault, Caguaripano claimed in a video that he was in rebellion against the "illegitimate tyranny of Nicolás Maduro." He had been expelled from the military ranks in 2014 for rebellion and treason.

The Minister of Defense described the attack as a "terrorist act".
In the video, Caguaripano assured that his action was not a coup d'état, but an operation to "restore constitutional order."

• Rebel pilot

On June 27, 2017, amid protests against Maduro that left 125 dead, former policeman Óscar Pérez led a helicopter attack with grenades and firearms on the buildings of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior. downtown Caracas.

After the attack, Pérez published several videos on his social networks requesting Maduro's resignation and saying that his goal was "to restore constitutional order." He appeared accompanied by four hooded men carrying long weapons.

The former pilot of the scientific police and amateur actor fled and spent several months in hiding.
In December 2017, a commando led by the former agent gagged National Guard soldiers and stole 26 Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition in Laguneta de La Montaña (Miranda state, north). Pérez broadcast videos of the assault on social networks.

On January 15, he was killed along with six of his collaborators during an operation to capture him.

Other members of the group were arrested, after a confrontation of several hours that Perez managed to publish on their social networks.

The opposition denounced the fact as an extrajudicial execution.

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