What we find out about US strikes on Venezuela

The US has captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro after a big scale strike on the South American nation, US President Donald Trump has stated.

Trump stated Venezuela’s left-wing president and his spouse had been flown overseas in a army operation together with US regulation enforcement. They’ve been charged with drug and weapons offences in New York.

It comes after explosions had been reported throughout the capital Caracas within the early hours of Saturday morning, together with at army bases.

The Venezuelan authorities has since demanded proof Maduro is alive. It has additionally deployed its armed forces and declared a nationwide emergency.

Maduro’s seize comes after heightened tensions between the 2 international locations, with Washington hanging boats within the Caribbean it says are getting used to hold medicine.

The US has accused the Venezuelan president of being personally concerned in drug-smuggling and being an illegitimate chief, whereas Maduro has accused the US of intimidation.

Here’s what we all know to date.

Maduro was captured by the US military’s Delta drive – the army’s high counter terrorism unit – in response to the BBC’s US information accomplice CBS.

Trump informed Fox and Pals on Saturday that Maduro and his spouse had been taken from “a home that was extra like a fortress”. The president stated US forces had been ready with “large blowtorches” to chop via metal, however stated Maduro “didn’t make it into that space of the home”.

Trump stated no US forces had been killed and there have been “few” accidents within the operation, which he stated he watched reside.

Maduro and his spouse had been on a ship on their option to New York Metropolis, Trump stated.

Trump is because of maintain a information convention at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida at 11:00 EST (16:00 GMT) at which additional particulars concerning the operation could also be disclosed.

Republican Senator Mike Lee, who spoke to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, stated “he [Rubio] anticipates no additional motion in Venezuela now that Maduro is in US custody, including that the strikes had been “deployed to guard and defend these executing the arrest warrant”.

Round 02:00 native time (06:00 GMT), loud explosions had been heard in Caracas, whereas plumes of smoke had been seen rising over the town.

Movies of explosions and helicopters flying overhead have been circulating on social media, however they haven’t been verified but.

It’s not recognized if there have been any casualties.

The Venezuelan authorities additionally stated the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira had been additionally hit.

BBC Confirm is working via plenty of movies displaying explosions, hearth and smoke in places round Caracas to determine precisely which internet sites had been focused.

It has confirmed three places, to date:

• Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base, an airfield often called La Carlota
• Port La Guaira, Caracas’ most important conduit to the Caribbean Sea, positioned in Miranda state
• Higuerote Airport, additionally positioned in Miranda state, simply east of Caracas

Trump took to his Reality Social platform to substantiate the US was behind the strikes on Saturday morning.

“The USA of America has efficiently carried out a big scale strike towards Venezuela and its chief, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, alongside along with his spouse, captured and flown out of the Nation,” Trump wrote.

“This operation was achieved together with US Regulation Enforcement. Particulars to comply with.”

The US president described it as a “sensible operation” to the New York Instances in a 50-second cellphone name.

In his interview with Fox and Pals later, he described the operation in additional element.

He stated US forces had been “ready for a second wave” however didn’t need to conduct one as a result of the primary was “so highly effective”.

Trump stated he spoke to Maduro every week in the past, including he had informed him “mainly I stated it’s a must to hand over, it’s a must to give up”.

Trump stated Maduro had wished to barter.

Relating to who would now govern the nation, Trump stated “we’ll be concerned in it very a lot”.

US legal professional Basic Pam Bondi stated Maduro and his spouse, First Woman Cilia Flores, had been indicted within the Southern District of New York.

They’ve been charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine, possession of machine weapons and damaging gadgets, and conspiracy to own machine weapons and damaging gadgets towards the US.

“They are going to quickly face the complete wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” Bondi wrote on X.

It’s unclear if the couple at the moment are on US soil.

Venezuela’s Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez stated the federal government didn’t know the place Maduro and his spouse had been, and demanded “rapid proof of life” for them each.

The nation’s defence minister Vladimir Padrino López claimed the strikes hit civilian areas and stated the federal government was compiling details about useless and injured individuals.

He added that Venezuela would “resist” the presence of overseas troops.

Venezuela’s authorities issued an official assertion denouncing the “extraordinarily severe army aggression” by the US “towards Venezuelan territory and inhabitants in civilian and army places”.

It additionally accused the US of threatening worldwide peace and stability and described the assault as an try and seize “Venezuela’s strategic sources, notably its oil and minerals” in an try and “forcibly break the political independence of the nation”.

Venezuela’s opposition chief María Corina Machado, winner of this 12 months’s Nobel Peace Prize, stated in a press release on social media that “the hour of freedom has arrived”.

Nicolás Maduro rose to prominence underneath the management of left-wing President Hugo Chávez and his United Socialist Get together of Venezuela (PSUV). He succeeded Chávez as president in 2013.

In 2024, Maduro was declared winner of the presidential election, although voting tallies collected by the opposition recommended that its candidate, Edmundo González, had gained by a landslide.

He has been at odds with Trump over the arrival of a whole lot of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants within the US and the motion of medicine into the US, particularly fentanyl and cocaine.

Trump has designated two Venezuelan drug gangs – Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles – as Overseas Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) and has alleged that the latter was led by Maduro himself.

The US had supplied a $50m (£37m) reward for info resulting in Maduro’s arrest.

Maduro has vehemently denied being a cartel chief and has accused the US of utilizing its “conflict on medicine” as an excuse to attempt to depose him and get its arms on Venezuela’s huge oil reserves.

In current months, US forces have additionally carried out greater than two dozen strikes in worldwide waters on boats it alleges have been used to traffick medicine into the US. Greater than 100 individuals have been killed.

First Woman Cilia Flores – who was additionally taken to the US and indicted alongside her husband – has held plenty of senior posts in Venezuela, together with legal professional normal and president of the nationwide meeting. She is seen as a strong political operator in her personal proper.

Flores, 59, is colloquially often called Maduro’s primera combatiente (first warrior), and has usually been pictured at his facet throughout public engagements.

Like her husband, she was dwelling underneath US sanctions – which had been imposed throughout Trump’s first presidency on the allegation that she was concerned in Maduro’s corrupt practices. On the time, Maduro hit again by saying: “You do not mess with Cilia. You do not mess with household.”

Flores is a lawyer by coaching, and he or she as soon as fought for the discharge from jail of Hugo Chávez, who tried to grab management of the Venezuelan authorities in 1992 and later went on to turn out to be the nation’s president. Her profession turned endlessly linked with Chávez’s motion.

Flores’s tenure as head of the Nationwide Meeting was not with out controversy, together with her resolution to ban press entry to the parliamentary chamber, and accusations of nepotism.

Flores’s relations have beforehand been focused by the Individuals on related accusations of medicine trafficking. In 2015, two of her nephews had been arrested in Haiti and convicted and imprisoned within the US on medicine costs. They had been later launched underneath a 2022 prisoner swap.

Information of the strikes prompted the strongest response from Venezuela’s long-term allies.

Russia accused the US of committing “an act of armed aggression” that was “deeply regarding and condemnable”.

China’s overseas ministry stated in a press release that it was “deeply shocked and strongly condemns” the usage of drive towards a sovereign nation and its president.

Iran’s overseas ministry referred to as the strikes a “flagrant violation of the nation’s nationwide sovereignty”.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro referred to as the strikes an “assault on the sovereignty” of Latin America, whereas Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel described it as a “legal assault”.

Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva wrote on X that the bombings and Maduro’s seize “cross an unacceptable line”, including “attacking international locations in flagrant violation of worldwide regulation is step one towards a world of violence, chaos, and instability”.

Chile’s President Gabriel Boric expressed “concern and condemnation” on X and referred to as for “a peaceable answer to the intense disaster affecting the nation”.

In the meantime, Trump’s ally in Argentina, Javier Milei, wrote “Freedom strikes ahead” and “Lengthy reside freedom” on social media.

UN Secretary Basic Antonio Guterres is “deeply alarmed” by the strikes, along with his spokesman saying in a press release it units a “harmful precedent”.

The UN chief is “deeply involved that the principles of worldwide regulation haven’t been revered” and calls on all actors in Venezuela to have interaction in inclusive dialogue, in full respect of human rights and the rule of regulation”, his spokesman stated.

The EU’s high diplomat Kaja Kallas reiterated the bloc’s place that Maduro lacks legitimacy and that there needs to be a peaceable transition of energy, however stated the rules of worldwide regulation have to be revered.

The workplace of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stated the federal government believed “exterior army motion is just not the way in which to finish totalitarian regimes” however stated it thought of “defensive intervention” towards hybrid assaults to be “professional, as within the case of state entities that gas and promote drug trafficking”.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer stated he wished to “set up info” and converse to Trump first concerning the “fast paced scenario”.