"The things they said were plausible and they were consistent with more than 15 years of engagement with China, Russia and Iran. [But] not everything that they claimed by showing a satellite image was necessarily proven by that image... It's not nothing, but I don't regard it as a significant 'Ah-hah!"

"Venezuela now for literally more than two decades has been one of the biggest strategic challenges to the U.S. To me the drugs the U.S. is currently going after are only the tip of the iceberg of a broader, longtime, multi-dimensional threat."

Dr. Even Ellis, research professor, U.S. Army War College 

 

"There were several times when I was confounded by what he [Lee Wheelbarger, former U.S. army technology developer] presented to me, and then it  blew my mind when I validated it was accurate: 'Holy crap, OK, cool'."

"One thing I've learned is he's not going to put his word on the line unless he feels he can back it up. He will substantiate everything he has."

Michael Torres, retired U.S. air force colonel

Satellite show images of Trump's strike on Venezuelan neighbourhoods, The Independent 

 

According to Dr. Ellis of the Army War College, military ties that Venezuela has with Russia, China and Iran are of long standing. Venezuela purchased $12 billion in defence materiel from Russia starting in 2006 that was inclusive of a fleet of Sukhoi-30 fighter jets, helicopters, numerous S-300 anti-aircraft missiles and armed vehicles. A Russian fleet of war-vessels visited both Cuba and Venezuela last year. At least 27 of its K-8 fighters have been supplied to Venezuela by China, along with radars and associated equipment, while the Republic of Iran sourced Venezuela with a number of fast-attack boats, trained Venezuelan special forces members and collaborated on the production of drones. 

 

Intelligence experts are mulling over a report arguing that satellite images reveal a launch site in Venezuela that has the potential to aim ballistic missiles at Washington, D.C., produced by a group of amateur intelligence analysts. The report was released just prior to the dead-of-night surprise American military raid that captured Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, taking them back to the United States to stand trial in New York for drugs and weapons charges deemed to be criminal offences in the United States, but not necessarily in Venezuela.

 

Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are seen in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, escorted by heavily armed Federal agents as they make their way into an armored car en route to a Federal courthouse in Manhattan on Jan. 5, 2026, in New York City. Photo by XNY/Star Max /GC Images

 

According to the group's report, it was in fact, not drugs but military developments in Venezuela alongside Russian, Chinese and Iranian troops stationed nearby that persuaded the Trump administration to make their strike, despite that the U.S. military dismissed that contention as "speculative". "I don't think it [scooping up the Venezuelan president and his wife] has a damn thing to do with the drug boats. I think the drug boats are completely irrelevant. That's an excuse", stated Lee Wheelbarger, who led the group investigation whose findings, including a video compilation of satellite picture were presented to a defence-oriented think tank meeting, the Mackenzie Institute, in Toronto.

 

A spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command covering South America contended that the organization makes no comments on "speculative reporting or unverified premises. Our mission remains focused on supporting regional stability, combating illicit activities, and working with our partners to address shared security challenges". Yet according to a Russian lawmaker, Russia considered supplying its new Oreshnik ballistic missiles to Venezuela, requested by Nicolas Maduro along with other equipment from Russia, China and Iran.

 

It has been confirmed that Venezuela has close military ties with the three countries, as well as with Hezbollah out of Lebanon, the Iranian proxy militia. The images collected by Wheelbarger's group and the analyses produced led to conclusions explaining the sudden midnight action by the U.S. against Venezuela. Action culminated from the threatening appearance of American warships, including an aircraft carrier patrolling the region, even as the U.S. destroyed dozens of boats claiming they were carrying drugs to end up in the United States. Deadly incidents decried as extrajudicial executions by those purportedly involved in drug trafficking who would normally face arrest and trial.

 

Wheelbarger, for several years a senior technologist with the U.S. army -- was a contractor developing night-vision equipment, communications gear and an advanced technological protocol enabling battlefield medics to transmit images to military hospitals, and then receive instructions on a video display -- was lauded  with claims that "Wheelbarger's electronic creations have extended the eyes and ears of America's intelligence network", by the History Channel's Modern Marvels program, in 1999. 

 

According to the man himself, he engages in the collection of publicly available images from 28 satellites operated by Maxar Technologies, Planet Labs, Airbus Defence and Space, BlackSky, Capella Space,     ICEYE, SkyFi, European Space Imaging, Apollo Mapping, Satellite Imaging Corp., and L3 Harris Geospatial; also accessing images from ground cameras, along with another video method that remained unexplained, to glean information from global human sources. He possesses three-dimensional  renderings of military hardware that can be placed over satellite images to match shape and size aiding in identifying specific equipment. 

 

A clearing on a mountain near Caracas, Venezuela that a group of private intelligence analysts says shows three rows of missile "tubes" that could be the launch sites for intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Photo by Lee Wheelbarger

 

In his Toronto presentation video he identifies images close to Caracas including a Russian base complete with 94 T-72 and T-74 tanks. Impressively, he points to a mountain hollowed out in the creation of a subterranean military complex with openings cut into the hill surrounded by rebar suggesting creation of a massive concrete facade with "millions of cubic yards" of excavated dirt piled nearby. The mountainside features an area with three parallel, straight lines of holes which Wheelbarger and  his colleagues identify as tubes to fire intermediate-range ballistic missiles from, basing their theory on matching underground launch sites located in Iran.

 

Jeff Nyquist, writer and geopolitics blogger who collaborates with Wheelbarger, notes that intermediate-range missiles could reach north to the U.S. capital. The Cuban airfield images cigar-shaped objects at a runway's end, identified by the analysts as Kitchen missiles. Russian weapons travelling at almost five times the speed of sound that can destroy naval ships, usually fired from aircraft, generally the Tu-22 bomber, not seen in the images, but readily disassembled and smuggled into Cuba on larger cargo planes, according to Wheelbarger. 

 

A stun­ning U.S. raid to cap­ture Venezuela’s pres­id­ent came after a group of ama­teur intel­li­gence ana­lysts argued that satel­lite images reveal a Venezuelan launch site that could send bal­listic mis­siles as far north as Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  National Post