On January 3, 2026, multiple explosions were reported at dawn across various regions of Venezuela, including Caracas and La Guaira. The Venezuelan government alleged that the United States orchestrated these attacks in order to acquire the nation\u2019s resources, particularly oil and gas. This incident echoes a prediction by Dr. Mohammad Walid Youssef, president of the ICGER, in an article published on November 5, 2025, entitled \u201cWill Nicol\u00e1s Maduro Meet the Fate of al-Assad and Ghani?\u201d In that publication, Dr. Youssef asserted that U.S. President Donald Trump \u201cplans, in 2025 and early 2026, to initiate a military intervention in Venezuela with the aim of removing President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and destabilizing his government.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shortly thereafter, President Trump declared that the United States had executed a \u201clarge-scale strike against Venezuela,\u201d further stating that President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife had been apprehended and extracted from the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his previous analysis, Dr. Youssef stated that President Trump aimed, in 2025 and early 2026, to conduct a military campaign in Venezuela with the objective of overthrowing President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, dismantling his socialist regime, and gaining control over the nation’s oil and gas reserves as well as its extensive subterranean resources, motivated by Trump\u2019s desire to reshape the global energy market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also underscored that \u201cVenezuela\u2019s proven oil reserves amount to approximately 300 billion barrels, the largest in the world, surpassing Saudi Arabia\u2019s reserves of around 267 billion barrels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Youssef further contended that \u201cMaduro will not fall solely as a result of the American military campaign, but due to the convergence of internal, structural factors that led to the collapse of Ashraf Ghani\u2019s government in Afghanistan in August 2021 and Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime in Syria in December 2024.\u201d He identified political corruption, economic collapse, the proliferation of drug trafficking, military frailty, social disintegration, and entrenched authoritarianism as the principal drivers. These elements are identified by ICGER\u2019s proprietary AI algorithms, which predicted that Maduro\u2019s regime could collapse in a manner similar to those of Ghani and Assad unless Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea act promptly to diminish U.S. influence and entangle Washington in a Venezuelan quagmire comparable to Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Youssef stressed that this is a highly challenging task, one that Russia cannot accomplish even if it wanted to, due to its deep involvement in Ukraine. Iran, limited by scarce resources, geographic distance, and ongoing tensions with Israel and the US, also cannot aid the Maduro regime in conducting a guerrilla war against an American military effort. Consequently, China stands out as the only actor capable of straining the US in Venezuela to divert Washington\u2019s focus from Taiwan, especially as China plans to take action after 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On January 3, 2026, multiple explosions were reported at dawn across various regions of Venezuela, including Caracas and La Guaira. The Venezuelan government alleged that the United States orchestrated these attacks in order to acquire the nation\u2019s resources, particularly oil and gas. This incident echoes a prediction by Dr. Mohammad Walid Youssef, president of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[66,31],"class_list":["post-2373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-developments-tracking","tag-dr-youssef","tag-icger"],"yoast_head":"\n