US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has ruled the country since 2013, was captured following a large-scale US strike on Caracas.

Elite US forces stormed Maduro’s home on a military base during the operation, dragging him and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their bedroom before flying them out of the country.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. planned to run Venezuela until a transition of power can take place. He claimed the American presence was already in place.

“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference, adding that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.”

Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges, but the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, accusing them of a role in narco-terrorism conspiracy.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed in a social media post that the couple would “soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.” Trump said the couple were aboard the U.S. warship Iwo Jima and headed to New York.

Early Saturday, multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through the Venezuelan capital. Maduro’s government accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets.

The attack lasted less than 30 minutes and the explosions — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report what they’d seen and heard. Some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed, said Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, without giving a number. Trump said some U.S. forces were injured in Venezuela but he believed none were killed.

Video obtained from Caracas and an unidentified coastal city showed tracers and smoke clouding the landscape as repeated muted explosions illuminated the night sky. Other footage showed cars passing on a highway as blasts illuminated the hills behind them. The videos were verified by The Associated Press.

Smoke was seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without power.

The strike followed a months-long Trump administration pressure campaign on the Venezuelan leader, including a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America and attacks on boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean accused of carrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes in September.

As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes was 35 and the number of people killed at least 115, according to the Trump administration. Trump said that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has justified the boat strikes as a necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S.

Maduro has decried the U.S. military operations as a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who is expected to assume Maduro’s role, is currently in Russia, according to four sources familiar with her movements. Her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, is said to be in Caracas.

Speaking on state television, Delcy Rodríguez said the government does not know where Maduro is being held and demanded that Trump provide proof that Maduro and his wife are still alive.

(YWN’s Jerusalem desk is keeping you updated after tzeis ha’Shabbos in Israel)

(AP & YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

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