Trump bombs Venezuela, US ‘captures’ Maduro: All that we know

Venezuelan vice president says Maduro’s whereabouts unknown, after dramatic attacks capping months of tension.

United States President Donald Trump announced on Saturday morning that his country’s forces had bombed Venezuela and captured the South American nation’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and First Lady Cilia Flores in a dramatic overnight military attack that followed months of rising tensions.

Ahead of a press conference held at his Mar-a-Lago Florida residence later in the day, Trump posted a photograph he said showed Maduro aboard the US warship USS Iwo Jima.

The image, posted on Trump’s Truth Social account, appeared to show Maduro in a grey tracksuit with a black band covering his eyes and a water bottle in his hand.

At the press conference, Trump said the US would “run the country” until a “judicious” transition of government could be made.

Venezuela’s government said that the US had struck three states apart from the capital, Caracas, while neighbouring Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro released a longer list of places that he said had been hit.

The operation has few, if any, parallels in modern history. The US has previously captured foreign leaders, including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Panama’s Manuel Noriega, but after invading those countries in declared wars.

Here is what we know about the US attacks and the lead-up to this escalation:

How did the attack unfold?

At least seven explosions were reported from Caracas, a city of more than three million people, at about 2am local time (06:00 GMT), as residents said they heard low-flying aircraft. Lucia Newman, Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor, reported that at least one of the explosions appeared to come from near Fort Tiuna, the main military base in the Venezuelan capital.

Earlier, the US Federal Aviation Administration had issued instructions to American commercial airlines to stay clear of Venezuelan airspace.

Within minutes of the explosions, Maduro declared a state of emergency, as his government named the US as responsible for the attacks, saying that it had struck Caracas as well as the neighbouring states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira.

The US embassy in Bogota, Colombia, referred to the reports of the explosions and asked American citizens to stay out of Venezuela, in a statement. But the diplomatic mission did not confirm US involvement in the attacks. That came more than three hours after the bombings, from Trump.

What did Trump say?

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said, a little after 09:00 GMT that the US had “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”.

Venezuela has not yet confirmed that Maduro was taken by US troops – but it also has not denied the claim.

Trump said that the attack had been carried out in conjunction with US law enforcement, but did not specify who led the operation.

Trump announced that there would be a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida at 11am local time (16:00 GMT) on Friday, where more details would be revealed.

Where did the US attack in Venezuela?

While neither the US nor Venezuelan authorities have pinpointed locations that were struck, Colombia’s Petro, in a social media post, listed a series of places in Venezuela that he said had been hit.

They include:

• La Carlota airbase was disabled and bombed.
• Cuartel de la Montana in Catia was disabled and bombed.
• The Federal Legislative Palace in Caracas was bombed.
• Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s main military complex, was bombed.
• An airport in El Hatillo was attacked.
• F-16 Base No 3 in Barquisimeto was bombed.
• A private airport in Charallave, near Caracas, was bombed and disabled.
• Miraflores, the presidential palace in Caracas, was attacked.
• Large parts of Caracas, including Santa Monica, Fuerte Tiuna, Los Teques, 23 de Enero and the southern areas of the capital, were left without electricity.
• Attacks were reported in central Caracas.
• A military helicopter base in Higuerote was disabled and bombed.

  

  
  

  What led to these US attacks on Venezuela?

  Trump has, in recent months, accused Maduro of driving narcotics smuggling into the US, and has claimed that the Venezuelan president is behind the Tren de Aragua gang that Washington has proscribed as a foreign terrorist organisation.

  But his own intelligence agencies have said that there is no evidence that Maduro is linked to Tren de Aragua, and US data shows that Venezuela is not a major source of contraband narcotics entering the country.

  Starting in September, the US military launched a series of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea that it claimed were carrying narcotics. More than 100 people have been killed in at least 30 such boat bombings, but the Trump administration is yet to present any public evidence that there were drugs on board, that the vessels were travelling to the US, or that the people on the boats belonged to banned organisations, as the US has claimed.

  Meanwhile, the US began its largest military deployment in the Caribbean Sea in at least several decades, spearheaded by the USS Gerald Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier.

  In December, the US hijacked two ships carrying Venezuelan oil, and has since imposed sanctions on multiple companies and their tankers, accusing them of trying to circumvent already stringent American sanctions against Venezuela’s oil industry.

  Then, last week, the US struck what Trump described as a “dock” in Venezuela where he claimed drugs were loaded onto boats.

• Could all this be about oil?

  Trump has so far framed his pressure and military action against Venezuela and in the Caribbean Sea as driven by a desire to stop the flow of dangerous drugs into the US.

  But he has increasingly also sought Maduro’s departure from power, despite a phone call in early December that the Venezuelan president described as “cordial”.

  Later on Saturday, Trump told a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence: “We’re going to have our very large American oil companies go in and spend billions of dollars, and fix the badly broken oil infrastructure” in Venezuela.

  He added: “We will make the great people of Venezuela very rich, independent and safe.”

  In recent weeks, some senior aides of the US president have been even more open about Venezuela’s oil: the country’s vast reserves of crude, unmatched in the world, amounted to an estimated 303 billion barrels (Bbbl) as of 2023.

  On December 17, Trump’s top adviser Stephen Miller claimed that the US had “created the oil industry in Venezuela” and that the South American country’s oil should therefore belong to the US.

  But though US companies were the earliest to drill for oil in Venezuela in the early 1900s, international law is clear: sovereign states – in this case Venezuela – own the natural resources within their territories under the principle of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources (PSNR).

  Venezuela nationalised its oil industry in 1976. Since 1999, when socialist President Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, came to power, Venezuela has been locked in a tense relationship with the US.

  Still, one major US oil company, Chevron, continues to operate in the country.

  The Venezuelan opposition, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado, has publicly called for the US to intervene against Maduro, and has pointed to the oil reserves that American firms could tap more easily with a new dispensation in power in Caracas.

  Oil has long been Venezuela’s biggest export, but US sanctions since 2008 have crippled formal sales and the country today earns only a fraction of what it once did.

  

  How has Venezuela’s government reacted?

  While Venezuela has not confirmed Maduro’s capture, Vice President Delcy Rodrigues told state-owned VTV that the government had lost contact with Maduro and First Lady Flores and did not have clarity on their whereabouts.

  She demanded that the US provide “proof of life” of Maduro and Flores, and added that Venezuela’s defences were activated.

  Earlier, in a statement, the Venezuelan government said that it “rejects, repudiates and denounces” the attacks.

  It said that the aggression threatens the stability of Latin America and the Caribbean, and places the lives of millions of people at risk. It accused the US of trying to impose a colonial war, and force a regime change – and said that these attempts would fail.

  

  How have other South American countries responded?

  Analysts say they are split along ideological lines, with right-wing governments applauding the removal of Maduro and left-wing governments criticising the move as illegal.

  Colombia’s left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, posted on X: “The Colombian government rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America.” Petro called for an immediate meeting of the United Nations Security Council, of which Colombia is a member.

  In Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said in a statement: “The bombings on Venezuela’s territory and the capture of its president cross an unacceptable line.”

  But while Chile’s outgoing President Gabriel Boric also condemned the US attack, incoming President-elect Jose Antonio Kast welcomed the news in a post on X. He wrote: “Now begins a greater task. The governments of Latin America must ensure that the entire apparatus of the regime abandons power and is held accountable.”

  Trump’s closest ally in the region is Argentinian President Javier Milei, who expressed approval of the Trump administration’s move via videos posted to X, while the right-wing president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, wrote on X: “All the criminal narco-Chavistas will have their moment. Their structure will finally collapse across the continent.”

  How have Venezuelans reacted so far?

  On Saturday morning, the streets of Caracas were mostly quiet on Saturday, patrolled by security forces as people stayed indoors. Later in the day, however, supporters of Maduro’s government – some chanting “We want Maduro” – began to gather in Caracas to protest against his capture.

  They were being led in a march by Caracas Mayor Carmen Melendez, wearing a military uniform. She described the US action as Maduro’s “kidnapping”.

  Many members of the Venezuelan diaspora, however, have taken to the streets in other countries to celebrate Maduro’s removal.

  About 20 percent of the population of Venezuela – about 7.7 million people – have left the country since 2014, mostly to seek better economic opportunities elsewhere, according to data from the United Nations International Organization for Migration. About 85 percent have moved to neighbouring countries in Latin America and to the Caribbean.

  “We are free,” Khaty Yanex, a Venezuelan woman who has lived in Chile for the past seven years, told Reuters. “We are all happy that the dictatorship has fallen and that we have a free country.”

  Another Venezuelan celebrating in Chile, Jose Gregorio, said: “My joy is too big. After so many years, after so many struggles, after so much work, today is the day. Today is the day of freedom.”

  In Spain, Venezuelan Agustin Rodriguez told a local television broadcaster that the strikes “may be necessary to find a way out for the country in which there can be a return to power alternation, where there can be a future”, Reuters reported.

  Andres Losada told Reuters he has lived in Spain for three years, where the Venezuelan diaspora is around 400,000 people. He said: “Although what people are going through in Caracas is tough, I believe that beyond that, there is a light that will lead us to freedom.”

  What happens to Maduro next?

  In a statement posted on X, Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that Maduro and his wife have been indicted in the Southern District of New York.

  Maduro has been charged with “narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy”, among other charges, Bondi said. It was unclear if his wife is facing the same charges, but she referred to the Maduro couple as “alleged international narco traffickers.”

  “They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” she added.

  Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, earlier posted on X that he had spoken to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had told him that Maduro had been “arrested by US personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States, and that the kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant.”

  In 2020, US prosecutors had charged Maduro with running a cocaine-trafficking network.

  But US officials remain silent on the illegality of Maduro’s capture and the attacks on Venezuela, which violate UN Charter principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations.

  Russia and Cuba, close Maduro allies, condemned the attack. Colombia, which neighbours Venezuela and has itself been in Trump’s crosshairs, said that it “rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America” – even though Bogota itself does not recognise Maduro’s government.

  Most other nations have been relatively muted in their response to the US aggression so far.

  

  What’s next for Venezuela?

  Constitutionally, Rodriguez, the vice president, is next in line to take charge if Maduro indeed has been plucked out of Venezuela by the US.

  Other senior leaders seen as close to Maduro and influential within the Venezuelan hierarchy include Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, National Assembly President – and Delcy’s brother – Jorge Rodriguez, and military chief General Vladimir Padrino López.

  But it is unclear whether the state apparatus that Chavez and Maduro carefully built over a quarter century will last without them.

  “Maduro’s capture is a devastating moral blow for the political movement started by Hugo Chavez in 1999, which has devolved into a dictatorship since Nicolas Maduro took power,” Carlos Pina, a Venezuelan analyst based in Mexico, told Al Jazeera.

  If the US does engineer – or has already engineered – a regime change, the opposition’s Machado could be a front-line candidate to take Venezuela’s top job, though it is unclear how popular that might be. In a November poll in Venezuela, 55 percent of participants were opposed to military intervention in their country, and an equal number were opposed to economic sanctions against Venezuela.

  In a post on X on Saturday, Machado said her opposition colleague, Edmundo Gonzalez, who many claim won the last election against Maduro, should now assume the presidency. She added that the opposition would restore order and free all political prisoners.

  But Trump might be mistaken if he thinks the US can stay out of the chaos that’s likely to follow in a post-Maduro Venezuela, suggests Christopher Sabatini, a senior research fellow for Latin America, the US and North America programme at Chatham House.

  “Assuming even if there is regime change – of some sort, and it’s by no means clear even if it does happen that it will be democratic – the US’s military action will likely require sustained US engagement of some sort,” he said.

  “Will the Trump White House have the stomach for that?”