Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez charged that he had eluded a US intelligence plot to kill him, in a move likely to pile new pressure on already uneasy ties with the United States.

Chavez, appearing on state media for the first time since disappearing in the middle of his own television marathon almost four days earlier, claimed he ducked an assassination plot in El Salvador where he was to have attended the swearing in of its new president.

"The information was very specific. It was all ready to take place, they were going to carry out an attack against me on arrival in San Salvador," Chavez charged, insisting the alleged plan aimed to launch "one or several missiles at the Cubana jet that was readied for the trip at Maiquetia," Caracas' main international airport.

The elected leftist Chavez, the closest regional ally of communist Cuba, said he received information on the alleged plot from Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. He did not immediately elaborate.

But he claimed "Venezuelan coup plotters went to San Salvador two weeks ago. I know them. They are the ones who have sworn they would kill me."

And while Chavez did not accuse US President Barack Obama personally, he said US intelligence activities operate outside the US president's authority.

"I am not accusing Obama. I think the American president has good intentions," Chavez said. "But over and above Obama, there is the CIA, and all of its tentacles. I have no doubt US intelligence services are behind this."

Chavez claimed "Luis Posada Carriles' people" also were behind the alleged plot on his life, and urged Obama to extradite the fugitive to Venezuela.

The enigmatic Venezuelan leader disappeared during an epic edition of his 'Alo Presidente' television program late Friday, prompting a torrent of speculation about his whereabouts and health.

He made an unexpected appearance Tuesday in the northern state of Vargas on the Caribbean coast.

There cameras filmed him talking on the telephone -- apparently to Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro -- in Honduras for a meeting of the Organization of American States.

It was the first time he had been seen in public since his television program was suspended without warning. It was scheduled to resume on Sunday, before again being cancelled "due to technical difficulties."

Compounding the rumors, Chavez on Monday cancelled a visit to El Salvador to attend the inauguration of President Mauricio Funes, with Chavez claiming his safety would not have been guaranteed if he had gone.

Food poisoning, a ministerial conclave and an unscheduled visit to Cuba to visit ailing close friend Fidel Castro, 82, were among the rumors swirling in Caracas' media, which scrambled to explain his rare disappearance.

El Nacional, a local newspaper, citing "non-official sources" said slumping audience numbers were responsible for the program being taken off the air.

Tuesday Chavez was overheard, by state television, complaining to his foreign minister about Washington's "outrageous" demand on Cuba.

The United States has called on the one-party communist-run island to release political prisoners and improve human rights before being its readmission to the Organization of American States.

Posada Carriles, a Cuban-born Venezuelan national, is an ex-CIA operative wanted by Venezuela for the 1976 downing of a Cuban airliner.

He was arrested in the United States in 2005 on immigration charges, but was released in May 2007 after a federal judge in Texas dropped the indictment, saying the government tricked the ex-CIA contractor by using a citizenship interview to obtain evidence against him.

Posada Carriles was jailed in Venezuela in 1976 for allegedly masterminding the downing of the Cuban jet. He escaped in 1985.

He was sentenced to eight years in jail in Panama for a 2000 bomb plot to assassinate then president Fidel Castro, and was pardoned four years later.

Declassified US documents show that he worked for the CIA from 1965 to June 1976. He also reportedly helped the US government ferry supplies to the Contra rebels who waged a bloody campaign to oust the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s.