{"id":56969,"date":"2026-01-26T19:14:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T19:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/trump-says-secret-u-s-weapon-crippled-venezuelan-defences-in-maduro-raid\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T19:15:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T19:15:53","slug":"trump-says-secret-u-s-weapon-crippled-venezuelan-defences-in-maduro-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/trump-says-secret-u-s-weapon-crippled-venezuelan-defences-in-maduro-raid\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says secret U.S. weapon crippled Venezuelan defences in Maduro raid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an interview with the New York Post published Saturday, Trump described the device as a key factor in neutralising Venezuelan defences. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Discombobulator. I\u2019m not allowed to talk about it,\u201d he said. \u201cThey never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off. We came in, they pressed buttons, and nothing worked. They were all set for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The operation, carried out on January 3, resulted in the arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their Caracas compound. Trump has previously described how U.S. personnel used cyber tools to knock out power across the capital, leaving Venezuelan forces largely incapacitated. <\/p>\n<p>While the U.S. military possesses a directed-energy weapon known as the Active Denial System, which emits an invisible radio frequency beam causing a burning sensation, it is unclear whether this was the technology Trump referenced.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond Venezuela, Trump reiterated that the U.S. could extend military strikes against drug cartels to North America. \u201cWe know their routes. We know everything about them. We know their homes. We know everything about them. We\u2019re going to hit the cartels,\u201d he said. Asked whether these strikes could occur in Central America or Mexico, Trump responded: \u201cCould be anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the U.S. conducted a strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean, marking at least 36 known strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since early September that have killed at least 117 people. <\/p>\n<p>Trump also said that the U.S. has seized oil aboard seven Venezuelan tankers, though he did not disclose the ships\u2019 current locations. \u201cI\u2019m not allowed to tell you,\u201d he said. \u201cBut let\u2019s put it this way, they don\u2019t have any oil. We take the oil.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-101133 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/2026-01-05t124551z-1320417056-rc20via4lz84-rtrmadp-3-usa-venezuela-maduro-new-york.jpg\" alt=\"The U.S. operation, carried out on January 3, resulted in the arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their Caracas compound. Trump has previously described how U.S. personnel used cyber tools to knock out power across the capital, leaving Venezuelan forces largely incapacitated. \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump claimed that U.S. forces used a secret weapon, which he called the \u201cDiscombobulator,\u201d to disable Venezuelan equipment during the early January raid that led to the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000101134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[192],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-56969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-wycliffe-nyamasege"],"bylines":[{"id":192,"name":"Wycliffe Nyamasege","slug":"wycliffe-nyamasege","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":131}],"contributors":[{"id":192,"name":"Wycliffe Nyamasege","slug":"wycliffe-nyamasege","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":131}],"featured_image":{"id":2000101134,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2026-01-05t124551z-1320417056-rc20via4lz84-rtrmadp-3-usa-venezuela-maduro-new-york.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2026-01-05t124551z-1320417056-rc20via4lz84-rtrmadp-3-usa-venezuela-maduro-new-york.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2026-01-05t124551z-1320417056-rc20via4lz84-rtrmadp-3-usa-venezuela-maduro-new-york.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2026-01-05t124551z-1320417056-rc20via4lz84-rtrmadp-3-usa-venezuela-maduro-new-york.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2026-01-05t124551z-1320417056-rc20via4lz84-rtrmadp-3-usa-venezuela-maduro-new-york.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2026-01-05t124551z-1320417056-rc20via4lz84-rtrmadp-3-usa-venezuela-maduro-new-york.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000101134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56969"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=56969"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=56969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}