Venezuela Prez Maduro captured and flown out of country, announces Trump

US President Donald Trump on Saturday said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been "captured and flown out of the country" after attacks across the South American nation.

"The United States of America has 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. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement," Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

He added that details were to follow and that a press conference will be held at 11 a.m. (US time) at his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago.

The announcement comes after a night of US strikes inside Venezuela. The US attacks were confirmed by a US official to Reuters early on Saturday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not provide further details on the operations.


While Trump has not publicly outlined his objectives, Reuters has reported that he has privately pressured Maduro to step down. Earlier this week, Trump had said it would be “smart” for Maduro to leave office.

Trump has sought a blockade of Venezuelan oil, expanded sanctions on the Maduro government and authorised more than two dozen strikes on vessels Washington claims were involved in drug trafficking in the Pacific and Caribbean. Last week, Trump said the US struck an area in Venezuela where boats were being loaded with drugs, the first known land operation since the pressure campaign began.

Trump did not specify whether the strikes were carried out by the CIA. Some media reports have attributed the operations to the spy agency. The Trump administration has accused Venezuela of fuelling drug flows into the US, allegations that Caracas has consistently denied.

Venezuela's government also accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations in multiple states after at least seven explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard around 2 a.m. local time Saturday in the capital, Caracas.

The Pentagon and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Smoke could be seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas. Another military installation in the capital was without power.

People in various neighbourhoods rushed to the streets. Some could be seen in the distance from various areas of Caracas.

"The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes," said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling. She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party. "We felt like the air was hitting us."

Venezuela's government, in the statement, called on its supporters to take to the streets.

"People to the streets!" the statement said. "The Bolivarian Government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack."

The statement added that President Nicols Maduro had ordered all national defence plans to be implemented and declared a state of external disturbance.

This comes as the US military has been targeting, in recent days, alleged drug-smuggling boats. On Friday, Venezuela said it was open to negotiating an agreement with the US to combat drug trafficking.

Maduro also said in a pretaped interview aired Thursday that the US wants to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through the monthslong pressure campaign that began with a massive military deployment to the Caribbean Sea in August.

Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism in the US The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels in what was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US began strikes on boats in September.

US President Donald Trump for months had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land. The US has also seized sanctioned oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, and Trump ordered a blockade of others in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American country's economy.

The US military has been attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since early September. As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.

They followed a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America, including the arrival in November of the nation's most advanced aircraft carrier, which added thousands more troops to what was already the largest military presence in the region in generations.

Trump has justified the boat strikes as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US and asserted that the US is engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels.

Meanwhile, Iranian state television reported on the explosions in Caracas on Saturday, showing images of the Venezuelan capital. Iran has been close to Venezuela for years, in part due to their shared enmity of the US.