United States President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the US had captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and was flying him out of Venezuela, in what would be a stunning culmination to a months-long campaign by Trump’s administration to oust the authoritarian leader.
Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, his social media platform, and said that the United States had carried out “a large scale strike against Venezuela” in an operation that was conducted “in conjunction with U.S. law enforcement.” He said that Maduro’s wife had also been captured.
In a brief phone interview with The New York Times after the announcement, Trump celebrated the success of the mission to capture the Venezuelan president. “A lot of good planning and lot of great, great troops and great people,” he said. “It was a brilliant operation, actually.”
When asked if he had sought congressional authority for the operation or what is next for Venezuela, Trump said he would address those matters during a news conference at 11 a.m. at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla.
Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, speaking on a state-run television station after Trump’s announcement, said that president Maduro’s location was unknown and asked Trump for proof of life.
Earlier on Saturday, the government of Venezuela accused the United States of carrying out military attacks in the capital, Caracas, and other parts of the country after large explosions were reported at a military base in the city.
The Venezuelan government declared a state of emergency in response to the attacks and said they had occurred in Caracas and in the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira, according to a statement from the Venezuelan communications ministry.
Venezuela “rejects, repudiates and denounces” U.S. military aggression, the statement said. It also called on “on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.”
For months, Trump issued threats, warnings and accusations of drug smuggling against Maduro, whom the State Department has branded the head of a “narco-terrorist” state.
U.S. officials have called Maduro, a self-described socialist who has led Venezuela since 2013, an illegitimate leader and have accused him of controlling criminal groups tied to drug trafficking, charges he denies.
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.
In recent weeks, 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 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.
(NY Times)
