In the early hours of Saturday morning, residents of Caracas, Venezuela, were startled by a series of at least seven explosions accompanied by the ominous sound of low-flying aircraft. These disturbances, occurring around 2 a.m. local time, left the city buzzing with uncertainty.

The cause of the explosions remains a mystery, as neither the Venezuelan government nor officials from the Pentagon and White House have provided any explanations or comments on the situation. The absence of immediate information has only added to the tension, prompting people in various neighborhoods to gather in the streets, anxious for answers.

This unsettling event occurs against the backdrop of recent U.S. military operations targeting boats allegedly involved in drug smuggling. Just a day prior, Venezuela expressed a willingness to enter negotiations with the United States in a bid to tackle the persistent issue of drug trafficking.

In a pretaped interview aired on Thursday, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused the U.S. of attempting to orchestrate a regime change in his country. He suggested that the months-long campaign, which began with a significant military presence in the Caribbean Sea in August, is an effort by the U.S. to seize control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

The South American country’s President Nicolás Maduro also said in a pretaped interview aired Thursday that the U.S. wants to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through the monthslong pressure campaign that began with a massive military deployment to the Caribbean Sea in August.

Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism in the U.S. The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels in what was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes on boats in September.

U.S. President Donald Trump for months had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land. The U.S. has also seized sanctioned oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, and Trump ordered a blockade of others in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American country’s economy.

The U.S. military has been attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since early September. As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.

They followed a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America, including the arrival in November of the nation’s most advanced aircraft carrier, which added thousands more troops to what was already the largest military presence in the region in generations.

Trump has justified the boat strikes as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

Meanwhile, Iranian state television reported on the explosions in Caracas on Saturday, showing images of the Venezuelan capital. Iran has been close to Venezuela for years, in part due to their shared enmity of the U.S.