The ‘discombobulator’: Did US use ‘secret weapon’ in Maduro abduction?

Venezuela’s defence minister has accused the United States of using the country as a “weapons laboratory” during the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on January 3.

Vladimir Padrino Lopez said last week that the US had used Venezuela as a testing ground for “advanced military technologies” that rely on artificial intelligence and weaponry never used before, according to the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal.
What has Trump said about US ‘secret weapons’?
Days after Maduro’s abduction, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reposted comments that appeared to have been posted on X by a Venezuelan security guard. He wrote that the US had “launched something” during the operation that “was like a very intense sound wave”.

“Suddenly, I felt like my head was exploding from the inside,” the security guard wrote. “We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.”

In his NewsNation interview last week, Trump said the “sonic weapon” was used against Maduro’s Cuban bodyguards in what he described as a heavily fortified area.

“Nobody else has it. And we have weapons no one knows about,” Trump said. “And I say it’s probably best not to talk about them, but we have some incredible weapons. That was an incredible attack. Don’t forget that house was in the middle of a fortress and military base.”

Then, on Sunday, Trump was quoted by the New York Post as saying the US had used a weapon designed to disable defensive equipment.

“The discombobulator,” he said. “I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

What ‘sonic’ or other disabling weapons has the US been known to use in the past?
The best known “sonic” systems used by the US are directional acoustic hailing and warning devices, especially the long-range acoustic device (LRAD), Brussels-based military and political analyst Elijah Magnier told Al Jazeera.

“These are not traditional weapons. Instead, they are powerful, focused sound projectors used for things like stopping ships, securing bases, protecting convoys, managing checkpoints and sometimes crowd control,” he said.

The main purpose of these devices is to control behaviour by sending voice commands over long distances at a high volume. They can cause discomfort and are designed to force people to either comply with the commands or to leave an area.

“LRADs have been deployed on ships for piracy deterrence, in port security and by law enforcement agencies,” Magnier explained. “At high output settings, these devices can cause pain, vertigo, nausea or hearing damage, which makes their use sensitive and subject to scrutiny.”

LRADs are not designed to disable electronics or communication networks, however.

Another weapon used to disorient people is the active denial system (ADS), which is often wrongly called a “sonic” weapon but does not use sound.