<\/p>\n
The United States hit Venezuela with a \u201clarge-scale strike\u201d early Saturday and said President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife were captured and flown out of the country after\u00a0months of stepped-up pressure\u00a0by Washington \u2014 an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Donald Trump on social media hours after the attack.<\/p>\n
Multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas, the capital, as Maduro\u2019s government immediately accused the U.S. of attacking civilian and military installations. The Venezuelan government called it an \u201cimperialist attack\u201d and urged citizens to take to the streets.<\/p>\n
Trump announced the developments on Truth Social shortly after 4:30 a.m. ET and said he would host a news conference at 11 a.m. ET.<\/p>\n
Here’s the latest:<\/p>\n
The Justice Department during Trump\u2019s first term in office charged in the several indictments that Maduro had effectively converted Venezuela into a criminal enterprise at the service of drug traffickers and terrorist groups as he and his allies stole billions from the South American country.<\/p>\n
The coordinated unsealing of indictments against 14 officials and government-connected individuals, and rewards of $55 million for Maduro and four others, attacked all the key planks of what then-Attorney General William Barr called the \u201ccorrupt Venezuelan regime,\u201d including the Maduro-dominated judiciary and the powerful armed forces.<\/p>\n
One indictment by prosecutors in New York accused Maduro and socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello, head of the rubber-stamping constitutional assembly, of conspiring with Colombian rebels and members of the military \u201cto flood the United States with cocaine\u201d and use the drug trade as a \u201cweapon against America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read our\u00a0news report from 2020 on the charges<\/p>\n
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau says the military action and seizure of Maduro marks \u201ca new dawn for Venezuela,\u201d saying that \u201cthe tyrant is gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
He posted on X hours after the strike. His boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reposted a post from July that said Maduro \u201cis NOT the President of Venezuela and his regime is NOT the legitimate government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Utah Sen. Mike Lee said Rubio informed him that \u201che anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in U.S. custody,\u201d the lawmaker posted on social media.<\/p>\n
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted on X that he had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who briefed him on the strike. Rubio told Lee that Maduro \u201chas been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House did not immediately respond to queries on where Maduro and his wife were being flown to. Maduro was indicted in March 2020 on \u201cnarco-terrorism\u201d conspiracy charges in the Southern District of New York.<\/p>\n
President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, one of Trump\u2019s fiercest critics, said the Colombian government convened a national security meeting before dawn Saturday and sent security forces to the border in preparation for a potential \u201cmassive influx of refugees\u201d from neighboring Venezuela.<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019d also call on the U.N. Security Council to consider \u201cthe aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout sovereignty, there is no nation,\u201d Petro wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s Foreign Ministry condemned what it called a U.S. \u201cact of armed aggression\u201d against Venezuela in a statement posted on its Telegram channel Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cVenezuela must be guaranteed the right to determine its own destiny without any destructive, let alone military, outside intervention,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
The ministry called for dialogue to prevent further escalation and said it reaffirmed its \u201csolidarity\u201d with the Venezuelan people and government, adding that Russia supports calls for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting.<\/p>\n
The State Department issued a new travel alert early Saturday warning Americans in Venezuela urging them to \u201cshelter in place\u201d due to the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cU.S. Embassy Bogota is aware of reports of explosions in and around Caracas, Venezuela,\u201d it said without elaboration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, warns U.S. citizens not to travel to Venezuela. U.S. citizens in Venezuela should shelter in place.\u201d The embassy in Bogota has been shuttered since March, 2019 but operates remotely.<\/p>\n
Secretary of State Marco Rubio retweeted Trump\u2019s announcement without comment, but his deputy, Christopher Landau, posted Trump\u2019s statement, adding that it marked \u201ca new dawn for Venezuela!\u201d \u201cThe tyrant is gone. He will now\u2014finally\u2014face justice for his crimes,\u201d Landau said.<\/p>\n
Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez says, \u201cWe do not know the whereabouts of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.\u201d He added: \u201cWe demand proof of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump said Maduro \u201chas been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow.\u201d He set a news conference for later Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
The explosions in Caracas, Venezuela\u2019s capital, early on the third day of 2026 \u2014 at least seven blasts \u2014 sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report hearing and seeing the explosions. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties. The apparent attack itself lasted less than 30 minutes, but it was unclear if more actions lay ahead, though Trump said in his post that the strikes were carried out \u201csuccessfully.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States hit Venezuela with a \u201clarge-scale strike\u201d early Saturday and said President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife were captured and flown out of the country after\u00a0months of stepped-up pressure\u00a0by Washington \u2014 an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Donald Trump on social media hours after the attack. Multiple explosions rang out and low-flying<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[4500,4501,3947,171,2199,785],"class_list":["post-14930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-breaking","tag-captures","tag-maduro","tag-strikes","tag-venezuela","tag-wife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}