CARACAS, Venezuela — U.S. airstrikes pounded military sites in and around Caracas before dawn as U.S. forces carried out a raid to seize Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who was later flown to New York to face drugs and weapons charges, U.S. officials said.
The operation — described by the Pentagon as “Operation Absolute Resolve” — began shortly before 2 a.m. local time, with explosions rocking the capital and nearby cities for more than an hour. Video circulating on social media showed helicopters sweeping low over Caracas and missiles striking targets that erupted in fireballs and thick columns of smoke.
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Top U.S. Gen. Dan Caine said the goal was narrowly defined: to capture Maduro. He said airstrikes cleared corridors for helicopters used in the capture raid and that the mission, involving more than 150 aircraft, followed months of planning.
Among the targets was Fort Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, which houses the defense ministry, a military academy and barracks for thousands of troops and their families. Reporters on the ground saw flames and heavy smoke rising from the vast base in southern Caracas; an armored vehicle and a truck near a guarded entrance were riddled with bullet marks.
La Carlota air base, east of the capital, was also hit. An armored vehicle at the base burned, as did a bus. Explosions were reported in La Guaira — the coastal hub north of Caracas with the country’s principal port and an international airport — as well as in Maracay and Higuerote along the Caribbean coast, all within roughly 100 kilometers of the capital.
Venezuelan authorities had not released casualty figures as of late evening. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López accused U.S. forces of firing missiles and rockets into residential areas. President Donald Trump said in an interview on Fox & Friends that no U.S. troops were killed. He later told the New York Post that “many Cubans” guarding Maduro had died, the first indication of casualties tied to the strikes from the U.S. side.
Trump posted a photo on Truth Social that he said showed Maduro handcuffed and blindfolded aboard a U.S. Navy ship in the Caribbean. From there, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were flown to New York, according to U.S. officials. “He was in a very highly guarded fortress actually,” Trump said, adding he watched the capture at his Mar-a-Lago estate “like I was watching a television show.”
Gen. Caine said intelligence teams spent months mapping the Venezuelan leader’s routines — “how he moved, where he lived, where he traveled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets” — before the raid. The 63-year-old socialist and his wife surrendered without resistance, Caine said.
Maduro’s capture capped 12 years of increasingly authoritarian rule. The U.S. had offered a $50 million reward for his arrest prior to the operation.
With the strikes still reverberating, Trump said the United States would “run” Venezuela during an undefined transition and suggested a possible deployment of U.S. forces on the ground. The comments startled allies and adversaries alike, signaling an expansive U.S. role after years of political and economic turmoil inside the oil-rich nation.
Opposition figure María Corina Machado welcomed the operation, saying on social media that Venezuela’s “hour of freedom has arrived.” She urged the opposition’s 2024 presidential candidate to assume office “immediately.” Trump, however, dismissed the prospect of Machado emerging as leader, saying she lacked “support or respect” in the country.
The scope of damage across military and civilian infrastructure remained unclear. Fires burned at Fort Tiuna hours after the strikes, and vehicles at La Carlota smoldered. Reports of blasts in port and airport zones raised concerns about disruption to imports, travel and emergency services.
As night fell, Venezuela faced a fluid and uncertain transition: a captured head of state en route to a U.S. courtroom, a military landscape scarred by precision strikes, and questions over who will govern — and how — in the days ahead.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
