Donald Trump has claimed the US has \u201ccaptured\u201d Venezuela\u2019s dictator, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, and flown them out of the South American country after a pre-dawn assault on Caracas and the surrounding region.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a brilliant operation, actually,\u201d the US president told the New York Times after witnesses in Venezuela reported a series of explosions. \u201cA lot of good planning and [a] lot of great, great troops and great people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Writing on social media, Trump confirmed his troops had launched \u201ca large-scale strike against Venezuela\u201d and said more details would be announced at a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. CBS News reported that US officials said Maduro had been captured by members of the elite army unit Delta Force, which was responsible for the 2019 killing of the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi<\/a>.<\/p>\n Speaking on \u200bVenezuela\u2019s state-run television channel, the vice-president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, \u200bappeared to confirm \u200bthe capture of Maduro and Flores\u200b, admitting that she did not know where they were. Rodr\u00edguez\u200b, who is one of Maduro\u2019s closest allies, demand\u200bed immediate \u201cproof of life\u201d \u200bfor the couple and accused the US of \u201cmurdering humble and innocent Venezuelan men and women\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this moment Venezuela is calm, absorbing the significance of a military aggression of this nature,\u201d she added in the brief telephone interview.<\/p>\n Earlier, Venezuela\u2019s government accused the US of launching a series of attacks against civilian and military targets in the country after explosions rocked its capital before dawn on Saturday.<\/p>\n Nicol\u00e1s Maduro attending a military event in La Guaira with his wife, Cilia Flores, in late December. Photograph: Miraflores Palace\/Reuters<\/p>\n In a statement, Venezuela\u2019s government urged citizens to rise up against the assault and said Washington risked plunging Latin America into chaos with \u201can extremely serious\u201d act of \u201cmilitary aggression\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe entire country must mobilise to defeat this imperialist aggression,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n In a defiant online video<\/a>, V\u200benezuela\u2019s defense minister, Vladimir Padrino L\u00f3pez\u200b, accused the US of launching a \u201cdeplorable\u201d and \u201ccriminal\u201d regime change operation and said the \u201cbarbaric\u201d invading forces had \u201cdesecrated our sacred land\u201d.<\/p>\n \u200b\u201cThis invasion represents the greatest outrage the country has ever suffere\u200bd,\u201d Gen Padrino L\u00f3pez declared, adding that Venezuelan authorities were still trying to calculate how many civilians had been killed or injured during helicopter attacks on urban areas.<\/p>\n He called on citizens and soldiers to unite to resist the foreign \u201cinvasion\u201d. \u201cThey have attacked us but they will not vanquish us \u2026 we will form an indestructible wall of resistance. Our vocation is peace, but our heritage is the fight for freedo\u200bm,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In its statement, Venezuela\u2019s government confirmed three other states had come under attack: Miranda, La Guaira and Aragua.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only objective of this attack is to seize control of Venezuela\u2019s strategic resources, in particular its oil and minerals,\u201d it said, calling on the international community to denounce what it called a flagrant violation of international law that put millions of lives at risk.<\/p>\n The president of neighbouring Colombia, Gustavo Petro, said on social media that Venezuela was under attack. \u201cRight now they are bombing Caracas \u2026 bombing it with missiles,\u201d Petro wrote on X, calling for an immediate emergency session of the UN security council.<\/p>\n Venezuelan forces patrol the streets in Caracas after explosions were reported across the capital. Photograph: Miguel Guti\u00e9rrez\/EPA<\/p>\n CBS News reported shortly afterwards that Trump had ordered the attacks \u2013 including on military facilities. The White House and Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n At least seven explosions were heard at about 2am local time and people in various neighbourhoods rushed to the street, the Associated Press reported. \u201cThe whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes in the distance,\u201d said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker.<\/p>\n Eyewitnesses reported seeing smoke pouring from two key military installations in Caracas: the La Carlota military airfield at the heart of the city and the Fuerte Tiuna military base where Maduro has long been thought to live. Another important airport to the east of Caracas, Higuerote, also appeared to come under attack.<\/p>\n The explosions come after a five-month US pressure campaign against Maduro<\/a>, which many analysts believe is designed to topple the Venezuelan leader. Since August, Donald Trump has ordered a massive military buildup off Venezuela\u2019s northern coast and conducted a series of deadly airstrikes on supposed \u201cnarco boats\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump has repeatedly promised land operations in Venezuela, amid efforts to pressure Maduro to leave office, including expanded sanctions, a ramped-up US military presence in the region and more than two dozen strikes on vessels allegedly involved in trafficking drugs<\/a> in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea.<\/p>\n The US 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\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n Colombia\u2019s president Petro published what he claimed was a partial list<\/a> of the bombed installations in Venezuela, including the 19th-century national assembly building in Caracas; La Carlota, the most important airbase within the capital; and an air force base in the city of Barquisimeto.<\/p>\n The reputedly targeted sites also included the Cuartel de la Monta\u00f1a barracks in Caracas, a military base that is home to the mausoleum of Maduro\u2019s mentor, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. The mausoleum is one of the most sacred locations for their political movement, Chavismo, which has governed Venezuela<\/a> in an increasingly authoritarian fashion since Ch\u00e1vez first came to power in 1999. Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s remains were taken to the barracks and put on public display after he died of cancer in 2013.<\/p>\n The president of Cuba, Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel, denounced the US\u2019s \u201ccriminal attack\u201d and claimed the region was being brutally assaulted. \u201c[This is] state terrorism against the gallant people of Venezuela and against Our America,\u201d wrote D\u00edaz-Canel who is Maduro\u2019s main regional ally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has claimed the US has \u201ccaptured\u201d Venezuela\u2019s dictator, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-671030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115830887762239473","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}