MEXCICO CITY (Sputnik) - Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez has alleged that US oil giant Exxon Mobil sponsored preparations for the 2023 foiled assassination attempts on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with the aim of exploiting rich resources of the Essequibo region.
On Monday, Venezuelan Prosecutor General Tarek William Saab said that the country's security forces had thwarted preparations for five terrorist attacks and conspiracies, with 27 people detained in the case. The detainees are believed to have recruited Venezuelan military personnel and planned, in coordination with the US authorities, assassination attempts on Maduro, Padrino and Freddy Bernal, the governor of the Venezuelan state of Tachira.
"I dare say, this is funded by Exxon Mobil so that once the task of these conspiratorial actions is completed — the task of assassinating the Venezuelan constitutional president, our commander-in-chief, of killing him, taking him out — [the US can] come after the Essequibo region. These are not crazy ideas, this is a geopolitical analysis constantly carried out by the General Staff of the Bolivarian armed forces," Padrino Lopez said in an speech broadcast by the state-run VTV channel on Monday.........more below
