US president claims capture and removal of Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife
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After reports of large-scale attacks on Caracas and the surrounding region in Venezuela, the US president, Donald Trump, claimed the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, while a statement by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said she was unaware of their whereabouts and expressed fears over their lives.
Trump stated that US forces had carried out a major military operation in and around the Venezuelan capital and asserted that Maduro and Flores had been flown out of the country following what he described as a carefully planned assault, with US media reporting that members of the elite Delta Force unit were involved in the operation.
Rodríguez, speaking on Venezuela’s state-run television, appeared to acknowledge that Maduro and Flores were no longer under government control, accused the United States of killing Venezuelan civilians during the attacks, and demanded evidence that the couple were still alive.
Venezuela’s government earlier accused the United States of launching coordinated strikes on civilian and military targets in Caracas as well as the states of Miranda, La Guaira and Aragua, and urged citizens to mobilise against what it described as an extremely serious act of military aggression that risked destabilising Latin America.
Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino López condemned the operation as an illegal regime-change attempt, said helicopters had attacked urban areas, and called on both civilians and soldiers to resist what he termed an invasion of Venezuelan territory.
Explosions were reported before dawn in several parts of Caracas, with witnesses describing smoke rising from key military installations including the La Carlota airfield and the Fuerte Tiuna base, while another airport at Higuerote was also said to have been hit.
The attacks followed months of heightened US pressure on Maduro, including sanctions, naval deployments, strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels, seizures of oil tankers, and a tightening blockade, developments that analysts say were aimed at forcing political change in Venezuela while deepening an already volatile regional crisis.