In a move that stunned the world, the United States bombed Venezuela and toppled President Nicolas Maduro amid condemnation and plaudits.<\/p>\n
In a news conference on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, President Donald Trump praised the operation to seize Maduro as one of the \u201cmost stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history\u201d.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n It was the riskiest and most high-profile military operation sanctioned by Washington since the US Navy\u2019s SEAL team killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a safe house in Pakistan\u2019s Abbottabad in 2011.<\/p>\n News of the 63-year-old Maduro being abducted took over the global news cycle.<\/p>\n After months of escalation and threats over Maduro\u2019s alleged involvement in shipping drugs to the US, the Trump administration had increased pressure on Caracas with a military build-up in the Caribbean and a series of deadly missile attacks on alleged drug-running boats that had killed more than 100 people and whose legality has been heavily questioned by the United Nations and legal experts.<\/p>\n The US had also previously offered a $50m reward for information leading to Maduro\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n But while the military was conducting operations in the Caribbean, US intelligence had been gathering information about Maduro, his eating habits, and special forces covertly rehearsed a plan to remove him from power forcibly.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s everything we know about how Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were \u201ccaptured\u201d.<\/p>\n The operation, named \u201cAbsolute Resolve\u201d, was carefully rehearsed for months, according to General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who spoke at Trump\u2019s news conference.<\/p>\n Trump also told Fox News that US forces had practised their extraction of Maduro on a replica building.<\/p>\n \u201cThey actually built a house which was identical to the one they went into with all the same, all that steel all over the place,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n At 11:46pm local time on Friday (03:46 GMT on Saturday), Trump gave the green light.<\/p>\n On Friday night, Caine said, \u201cthe weather broke just enough, clearing a path that only the most skilled aviators in the world could move through\u201d, with about 150 aircraft involved in the operation, taking off from 20 different airbases across the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n As part of the operation, US forces disabled Venezuela\u2019s air defence systems, with Trump saying the \u201clights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have\u201d, without elaborating.<\/p>\n Several deafening explosions rang out across the capital, with Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, describing it as part of a \u201cmassive joint military and law enforcement raid\u201d that lasted less than 30 minutes.<\/p>\n US helicopters then touched down at Maduro\u2019s compound in the capital at 2:01am (06:01 GMT) on Saturday, with the president and his wife then taken into custody.<\/p>\n There has been no readout on whether there was an exchange of fire, in a chaotic scramble, or if they were taken without a struggle.<\/p>\n At 4:29am (08:29 GMT), just two and a half hours later, Maduro was put on board a US aircraft carrier, en route to New York. Trump later posted a photograph of the Venezuelan leader on his Truth Social social media platform, blindfolded, wearing a grey tracksuit.<\/p>\n After departing the USS Iwo Jima, US forces escorted Maduro on a flight, touching down in New York\u2019s Stewart Air National Guard Base at about 4:30pm (21:30 GMT).<\/p>\n The US strikes hit Caracas as well as the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira, according to the Venezuelan government.<\/p>\n To Linda Unamumo, a public worker, the US attacks caused an explosion that was so strong it destroyed the roof of her house.<\/p>\n \u201cEven up until a little while ago, I was still crying \u2026 I was crying because I was so scared \u2026 I had to leave my house with my daughter, with my family, and go to another house, a neighbour\u2019s house. It was really traumatic. I wouldn\u2019t wish it on anyone, really,\u201d she told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n While official casualty counts have yet to be released, an official told The New York Times newspaper on condition of anonymity that at least 40 people had been killed in the attacks.<\/p>\n According to Trump, a few US members were injured in the operation, but he believed no one was killed.<\/p>\n During his news conference on Saturday, Trump announced that the US would \u201crun\u201d the country until a new leader was chosen.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to make sure that country is run properly. We\u2019re not doing this in vain,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a very dangerous attack. This is an attack that could have gone very, very badly.\u201d<\/p>\n The president did not rule out deploying US troops in the country and said he was \u201cnot afraid of boots on the ground if we have to\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump also, somewhat surprisingly, ruled out working with opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who had dedicated her prize, which he so wanted to win himself, to the US president.<\/p>\n \u201cShe doesn\u2019t have the support within or the respect within the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Constitutional Chamber of Venezuela\u2019s Supreme Court ordered Vice President Delcy Rodriguez to serve as acting president following the US\u2019s abduction of Maduro.<\/p>\n The court ruled that Rodriguez will assume \u201cthe office of President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in order to guarantee administrative continuity and the comprehensive defence of the Nation\u201d.<\/p>\n The court also said it would work to \u201cdetermine the applicable legal framework to guarantee the continuity of the State, the administration of government, and the defense of sovereignty in the face of the forced absence of the President of the Republic\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump had said earlier on Saturday that the US would not occupy Venezuela, provided Rodriguez \u201cdoes what we want\u201d.<\/p>\n In a move that stunned the world, the United States bombed Venezuela and toppled President Nicolas Maduro amid condemnation and plaudits. In a news conference on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, President Donald Trump praised the operation to seize Maduro as one of the \u201cmost stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
How was Maduro abducted?<\/h2>\n
How many people were killed in the US strikes on Venezuela?<\/h2>\n
What\u2019s next for Venezuela?<\/h2>\n
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