WASHINGTON — The United States carried out a lightning military strike on Venezuela early Saturday, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and spiriting them out of the country. President Donald Trump said the U.S. is “going to run” Venezuela until a transition of power can occur and the U.S. will tap the country’s vast oil reserves as part of a rebuilding effort.
American officials say Maduro and his wife will face narco-terrorism charges in U.S. courts.
The overnight operation left Venezuela reeling, with its leadership uncertain and details of casualties and the impact on its military still to emerge. Countries across the region and the wider world were absorbing the destabilizing implications of the apparently unilateral U.S. action.
Here’s what we know — and what we don’t.
Rising US pressure, then an overnight attack
Explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, early Saturday. At least seven blasts were heard in an attack that lasted less than 30 minutes. The targets appeared to include military infrastructure. Smoke was seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas and another military installation in the capital was without power.
Venezuelan ruling party leader Nahum Fernández told The Associated Press that Maduro and Flores were at their home within the Ft. Tiuna military installation outside Caracas when they were captured.
Venezuelan officials said people had been killed, but the scale of casualties was unclear.
The attack followed months of escalating pressure by the Trump administration, which has built up naval forces in the waters off South America and since early September has carried out deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean. Last week the U.S. struck Venezuelan soil with a CIA drone strike at a docking area alleged to have been used by drug cartels.
What happens next in Venezuela
Trump said during a news conference Saturday the U.S. would run the country and gestured to officials arrayed behind, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and said they’d be the ones doing it “for a period of time.”
Trump claimed the American presence was already in place, though there were no immediate signs of this. He suggested the U.S. would use revenues from oil sales to pay for running the country.
“We’re going to get reimbursed for everything that we spend,” he said.
Trump claimed that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez had been sworn in as president shortly before he spoke to reporters and added she had spoken with Rubio.
“She is essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again. Very simple,” Trump said.
Maduro facing US terrorism charges
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social network X that Maduro and Flores had both been indicted in the Southern District of New York and “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
Maduro was indicted in March 2020, during Trump’s first term, but the indictment against Flores was not previously made public.
In the indictment made public on Saturday, Maduro is charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
U.S. authorities accused Maduro of leading a “a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking.” The indictment alleges the drug trafficking “enriched and entrenched Venezuela’s political and military elite.”
Authorities estimate that as much as 250 tons of cocaine were trafficked through Venezuela by 2020, according to the indictment. The drugs were moved on go-fast vessels, fishing boats and container ships or by plane from clandestine airstrips, authorities allege.
Trump said Maduro and his wife are aboard a U.S. warship and will face prosecution in New York.
How the US operation played out
Trump gave some details of the operation during a Saturday morning interview on “Fox and Friends.”
He said a few U.S. members of the operation were injured but he believed no one was killed.
He said Maduro was “highly guarded” in a presidential palace akin to a “fortress” and the Venezuelan leader tried to get to a safe room but wasn’t able to get there in time.
Trump said U.S. forces practiced the operation ahead of time on a replica building, and the U.S. turned off “almost all of the lights in Caracas,” although he didn’t detail how they accomplished that.
Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, also offered some details of the operation, saying some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed.
Questions over legality
The U.S. does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, and the legal implications of the strike under U.S. law were not immediately clear.
The Trump administration maintains that Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela and claims he has effectively turned Venezuela into a criminal enterprise at the service of drug traffickers and terrorist groups.
Mike Lee, a U.S. senator from Utah, said on X that the action “likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack.”
But some Democrats were more critical.
Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said in a statement, “President Trump’s unauthorized military attack on Venezuela to arrest Maduro — however terrible he is — is a sickening return to a day when the United States asserted the right to dominate the internal political affairs of all nations in the Western Hemisphere.”
Venezuela’s future uncertain
Maduro’s government accused the United States of an “imperialist attack” on civilian and military installations and urged citizens to take to the streets.
Armed individuals and uniformed members of a civilian militia took to the streets of a Caracas neighborhood long considered a stronghold of the ruling party. But in other areas of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack. Parts of the city remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.
Other countries scramble to respond
Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia sent troops to the border and anticipated an influx of refugees.
Latin American leaders were sharply divided over the strikes. Trump’s right-wing ally President Javier Milei of Argentina celebrated the operation, while leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned American actions and warned of the sharp repercussions of past American interventions in Latin America.
Cuba, a supporter of the Maduro government and a longtime adversary of the United States, urged the international community to respond to what President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez called “the criminal attack.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the attack and capture of Maduro would be “an unacceptable infringement on the sovereignty of an independent state.”
U.S. allies in Europe — critical of Maduro but mindful of international law — offered muted responses as they scrambled to understand the scale and implications of the attack.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc “has repeatedly stated that Mr Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition. Under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the U.N. Charter must be respected. We call for restraint.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had not spoken to Trump about the attack and stressed that “the U.K. was not involved in any way.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Spain was “conducting a thorough monitoring of the events in Venezuela” and called for “de-escalation and responsibility.”
Lawless reported from London. Associated Press Writer Danica Kirka in London contributed to this story.