Maduro (l), Trump (r)
The US says it has captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and launched “large-scale” strikes on the South American nation.
US President Donald Trump said Maduro had been flown out of the country. Details of the strikes remain sparse, but video from the country’s capital Caracas shows helicopters flying overhead after explosions rocked the city.
Denouncing “US military aggression”, Venezuela’s government has demanded proof Maduro and his wife, First Lady Cilia Flores, were alive.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Muduro’s regime was “illegitimate” and accused him of heading a “narco-terror organisation”.
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The US army’s elite Delta Force carried out the operation to capture Maduro and his wife, officials told the BBC’s US partner CBS News.
Rubio anticipates no further action against Venezuela, according to Republican Senator Mike Lee.
Trump ordered strikes on military sites in Venezuela. Among the sites hit are La Carlota military airfield in the centre of the capital and the main military base of Fuerte Tiuna.
Plumes of smoke were seen rising from the Venezuelan capital early on Saturday morning. A national emergency has been declared.
Trump, who has deployed a large naval task force in the Caribbean, has repeatedly raised the prospect of ground strikes in Venezuela.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform: “The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country.
“This operation was done in conjunction with US Law Enforcement. Details to follow.”
He added that there would be a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida at 11:00 EST (16:00 GMT).
Journalist Vanessa Silva, who lives in Caracas, told the BBC that she heard a huge explosion “stronger than thunder”, causing her home to vibrate.
“My heart was pumping and legs were shaking,” she said.
The Venezuelan government said the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira were also hit, and that the strikes aimed to seize Venezuela’s oil and minerals.
It said in astatement that it “rejects, repudiates and denounces before the international community the extremely serious military aggression perpetrated by the current Government of the United States of America”.
Cuba and Colombia have also denounced the attacks.
The developments come at a moment of heightened tension between the US and Venezuela.
Washington has conducted a series of strikes on boats in the Caribbean it suspects of carrying drugs.
On Monday, Trump said the US had carried out a strike on a “dock area” linked to alleged Venezuelan drug boats, causing a “major explosion”.
Maduro has accused the US of intimidation to bring about regime change in his country.
He has also argued the US seizure of several oil tankers it said were transporting sanctioned oil revealed Washington’s true motivations to control Venezuela’s large oil reserves.
The US has accused Maduro of being personally involved in drug-smuggling and being an illegitimate leader. The results of last year’s presidential election were widely dismissed on the international stage.
Speaking on the issue, the UK was not involved “in any way” in the US-led strikes on Venezuela, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said. Sir Keir said he had not yet spoken to US President Donald Trump about the US operation to seize President Nicolas Maduro in the country’s capital, Caracas. Asked if he condemned the US action, as a number of other UK politicians have, he told reporters he wanted to “establish facts” and speak to Trump first about the “fast moving situation”.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel says his country “denounces and urgently demands the reaction of the international community against the criminal attack by the US on Venezuela”
Source: BBC
