US strikes Venezuela, seizes president and his wife, Trump says

AI-assisted summary
• Venezuela's vice president has demanded "proof of life" for Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
• The U.S. State Department has advised American citizens in Venezuela to shelter in place and leave when it is safe.
• The operation follows a recent U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and previous strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels.

The United States seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife in an overnight military operation on Jan. 3, President Donald Trump said, as U.S. airstrikes rocked Caracas and targets across the country.

The U.S. "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," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement." Trump is staying at his Mar-a-Lago residence and club in Palm Beach as part of his holiday vacation, which included talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In remarks before and after his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump acknowledged at the time a U.S. strike at a coastal facility in the South American country.

Trump said on Truth Social that there will be a news conference 11 a.m. on Jan. 3 at Mar-a-Lago.

Images from Venezuela showed explosions, burning vehicles and plumes of smoke rising over the capital, Caracas, and other locations, as witnesses reported the sounds of low-flying jets.

The blasts came after a United States military buildup in the Caribbean, U.S. attacks on alleged drug boats, the seizure of Venezuelan oil tankers and threats by Trump against Maduro and his government.

Venezuela's government declared a state of emergency and denounced what it called "extremely serious military aggression perpetrated by the current Government of the United States of America against Venezuelan territory and population."

Venezuela's vice president demands 'proof of life' of Maduro

Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela's vice president, said the Venezuelan government does not know the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro or his wife, Cilia Flores, after President Trump announced that the U.S. had captured Maduro and flown him out of the country.

"We demand immediate proof of life of President Nicolás Maduro and the first lady Cilia Flores," Rodriguez said on Venezuelan state TV.

"Proof of life" is a term associated with kidnappings, in which captors provide confirmation that the victim they are ransoming is still alive.

-Cybele Mayes-Osterman

Delta Force troops captured Maduro: report

Members of the Army's secretive Delta Force led the raid to capture Maduro and his wife, according to CBS News.

Delta Force, considered the Army's equivalent to the Navy's SEAL Team 6, is trained in counterterrorism and raids against important targets. The unit carried out the 2019 raid that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS.

Videos from Caracas circulating on social media showed several helicopters flying over the city and firing at targets. The Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment routinely supports Delta Force and other U.S. special operations forces on high-stakes missions.

– Davis Winkie

Opposition says multiple military targets hit

David Smolansky, a spokesperson for Maria Corina Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, told USA TODAY that strikes carried out by the U.S. targeted several critical infrastructure and military facilities. 

Those include  Fuerte Tiuna, the main military base in Caracas, La Carlota, a military airbase, a site for signal antennae and communications infrastructure on a peak overlooking Caracas called El Volcán, and a port on the Caribbean coast called La Guaira.

-- Cybele Mayes-Osteman

Trump has for years pushed to oust Maduro

President Trump has had his sights set on toppling Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's strongman leader, since his first term in the White House.

In 2019, the Trump administration threw its weight behind Juan Guaido, an opposition politician who attempted to unseat Maduro in a failed coup. Maduro and some high-level Venezuelan officials were indicted the next year in a U.S. court on drug trafficking and corruption charges.

A former bus driver, Maduro rose through the ranks of Hugo Chavez' socialist party and took over as his handpicked successor after an election held after Chavez' death in 2013.

Maduro has been widely accused by election monitoring organizations and the Venezuelan opposition of rigging the next two elections to stay in power.

-Cybele Mayes-Osterman

US citizens in Venezuela should 'shelter in place,' leave: embassy

The State Department acknowledged "reports of explosions in and around Caracas, Venezuela," in a post to the U.S. Embassy Venezuela website.

"U.S. citizens in Venezuela should shelter in place and depart immediately when it is safe to do so," said the post by the U.S. Embassy Colombia. (The American embassy in Caracas closed in 2019.)

The alert reiterated earlier travel guidance from Dec. 3 warning "all U.S. citizens in Venezuela ... to depart immediately."

– Davis Winkie

Venezuela defense minister condemns 'criminal military aggression'

Gen. Vladimir Padrino López, Venezuela's defense minister, called the U.S. operation "the most criminal military aggression" in a statement shared by state media outlet teleSUR TV.

Padrino López, who has held his position for more than a decade, is under U.S. sanctions and was indicted on U.S. drug trafficking charges in 2019.

– Davis Winkie

Attacks follow large US military buildup

The overnight explosions follow a series of attacks by the U.S. military on alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific that began in early September. The campaign escalated to include the seizure of oil tankers coming and going from Venezuelan ports in late December.

A sizeable American flotilla has amassed in the southern Caribbean Sea, including multiple guided missile destroyers, a missile cruiser, and a Marine Corps amphibious ready group aboard Navy landing ships. The U.S. publicly moved the USS Gerald R. Ford – the world's largest aircraft carrier – into the region in recent months as well.

Just days before the apparent attack, President Donald Trump confirmed that the CIA conducted a land strike against a dock facility in the country.

The administration has attacked at least 35 boats traversing international waters, killing at least 115 people − many of them Venezuelans. Trump and other officials have defended the boat strikes as an attempt to stop illegal narcotics, specifically fentanyl, from flooding into the country.

"The Biden administration preferred the kid gloves approach, allowing millions of people — including dangerous cartels and unvetted Afghans — to flood our communities with drugs and violence," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a Nov. 29 post on X, when he lashed out at a report that he ordered U.S. military officials to leave no survivors during one of the Caribbean sea strikes.

Senator calls attacks a 'stupid adventure'

Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the Trump administration's military attacks for providing no intelligence briefings or other evidence about what the vessels are carrying. Some members of Congress, former military officials and legal analysts have said the strikes are illegal and amount to extrajudicial killings that violate international human rights law.

Some of those lawmakers also criticized Saturday's strikes and the administration's silence in their immediate wake.

"We have no vital national interests in Venezuela to justify war," said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, on X. "We should have learned not to stumble into another stupid adventure by now. And he’s not even bothering to tell the American public what the hell is going on."

Trump has described Maduro, who has been in power since 2013 after the death of populist Hugo Chávez, as running Venezuela like a "narco-terrorist" drug cartel that is directly responsible for American deaths.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a notice banning commercial aircraft from operating in Venezuelan airspace around 1 a.m. ET on Jan. 3.

Contributing: Reuters