Palm Beach, Florida, USA.- The United States military captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, in a lightning strike on Caracas early Saturday morning and was transporting him to New York to face criminal charges, the stunning culmination of a monthslong campaign by President Trump and his aides to oust the authoritarian leader.
Hours later, Mr. Trump said at a news conference the United States would “run” the country until a proper transition of power could be arranged, raising the prospect of an open-ended commitment. He offered few details, and it was not clear whether he meant U.S. forces would occupy the country, although he said he was not afraid of “boots on the ground.”
There were no obvious signs of a U.S. military presence in Venezuela at midday on Saturday, as Venezuelans began to assess the damage and toll of the American airstrikes and the ground incursion that led to the capture of Mr. Maduro and his wife.
At least one older civilian woman was killed when an airstrike hit her apartment building in Catia la Mar, just west of the Caracas airport.
Delcy Rodríguez, who had been Mr. Maduro’s vice president, was sworn in as interim president at a secret ceremony in Caracas, according to two people close to the government who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Later in the day, she delivered an defiant address to the nation, accusing the United States of invading her country under false pretenses and asserted that Mr. Maduro was still Venezuela’s head of state. “There is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros,” Ms. Rodríguez said to thundering applause.
While Mr. Trump said little about how the United States would be “running” Venezuela, he insisted it “won’t cost us anything” because American oil companies would rebuild the energy infrastructure in Venezuela, which holds vast reserves of oil.
“We are going to run the country right,″ Mr. Trump said as he turned to oil. “It’s going to make a lot of money.” Past Venezuelan governments, he said, “stole our oil” — an apparent reference to the country’s nationalization of its oil industry.
American special operations forces captured Mr. Maduro with the help of a C.I.A. source within the Venezuelan government who had monitored his location in recent days, according to people briefed on the operation. Mr. Trump posted an image of Mr. Maduro in custody aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima, one of the American warships that have been prowling the Caribbean, and said he and his wife would be taken to New York.
The swift military operation came after months of threats, warnings and accusations of drug smuggling by Mr. Trump against Mr. Maduro. Mr. Trump said that no American troops had been killed but suggested in an interview with Fox News that some had been injured when their helicopter was hit.
Mr. Maduro, a self-described socialist, has led Venezuela since 2013, and the Biden administration accused him of stealing the election that kept him in power last year. His inner circle appeared to have survived.
Here is what else to know
Military buildup: Since late August, the Pentagon has amassed troops, aircraft and warships in the Caribbean. The U.S. military has attacked many small vessels that U.S. officials maintained were smuggling drugs, killing at least 115 people. And the C.I.A. conducted a drone strike on a port facility in Venezuela last month, according to people briefed on the operation. A broad range of experts on the use of lethal force have said that the strikes on small vessels amount to illegal extrajudicial killings, but the Trump administration has asserted they are consistent with the laws of war because the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels.
Oil blockade: The United States has also carried out a campaign against tankers carrying Venezuelan crude, throwing the country’s oil industry into disarray and jeopardizing the government’s main source of revenue. The United States seized one sanctioned tanker carrying oil as it sailed from Venezuela toward Asia. It intercepted and detained another oil vessel that was not under U.S. sanctions. And the U.S. Coast Guard tried to board a third tanker as it was on the way to Venezuela to pick up cargo.
Cartel accusations: In March 2020, Mr. Maduro was indicted in the United States on charges that he oversaw a violent drug organization known as Cartel de los Soles. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Mr. Maduro is actually at odds with one group, Tren de Aragua, and analysts say the Cartel de Los Soles does not exist as a concrete organization.
Trump shares an image of Maduro blindfolded and handcuffed
President Trump posted a photograph on social media on Saturday that he said was of the captured Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, on board a U.S. warship hours after the United States seized him in Caracas.
The picture showed a man in a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, blindfolded and handcuffed with a bottle of water in his right hand.
“Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima,” Mr. Trump captioned the photo, minutes before he addressed the nation from Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, and announced that America was “going to run” Venezuela.
Credit: The New York Times
