{"id":11163,"date":"2026-01-03T18:21:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T13:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=11163"},"modified":"2026-01-03T18:21:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T13:21:38","slug":"trump-says-venezuelas-maduro-captured-in-large-scale-us-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/security\/trump-says-venezuelas-maduro-captured-in-large-scale-us-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured in ‘large scale’ US strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Palm Beach \u2013\u00a0<\/em>President Donald Trump said Saturday that US forces had captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro after launching a “large scale strike” on the South American country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump’s stunning announcement follows months of steadily mounting US military and economic pressure on leftist leader Maduro and his country’s oil-export-dependent economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela<\/a> and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro<\/a>, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country,” Trump <\/a>said on Truth Social.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump added that he would give a news conference at 11:00 am (1600 GMT) at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he is nearing the end of a two-week Christmas and New Year’s vacation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a brief phone interview with The New York Times<\/em>, Trump hailed the “brilliant” operation. “A lot of good planning and lot of great, great troops and great people,” the paper quoted Trump as saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US army’s elite Delta Force unit carried out the operation to seize Maduro, CBS News reported. US officials did not immediately confirm the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US military action was now complete, with Maduro having been arrested to “stand trial” in the United States<\/a>, a US senator quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio as saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in US custody,” Senator Mike Lee, a Republican initially critical of the operation, wrote on X after what he said was a telephone call with Rubio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration in August offered a $50 million reward for information leading to the capture of Maduro, whom it accuses of leading the alleged “Cartel of the Suns” drug trafficking organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Justice for his crimes’<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Rubio’s number two hailed a “new dawn” for Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A new dawn for Venezuela! The tyrant is gone. He will now — finally — face justice for his crimes,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House meanwhile reposted a video on X of Trump saying in October that Maduro “doesn\u2019t want to fuck around with the United States.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has given differing arguments for his campaign against Venezuela, including the claim that the country is a major drug exporter to the United States and that Venezuela seized US oil interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Republican leader has not explicitly called for Maduro’s ouster but the US government, along with many European nations, does not recognize the Venezuelan leader’s legitimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump said in December “it would be smart for (Maduro)” to step down and has also said that the Venezuelan leader’s “days are numbered.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US president’s claim of Maduro’s capture comes two days after Maduro attempted to engage with Trump, offering cooperation on fighting drug trafficking and illegal migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A huge naval and aerial presence has been established in the Caribbean, including the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and other warships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US forces have seized two tankers at sea as part of an oil <\/a>blockade on Venezuela and killed more than 100 people in aerial strikes to destroy small boats accused of drug trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump said on Monday that the United States had hit and destroyed a docking area for alleged Venezuelan drug boats, in what was the first known strike on Venezuelan soil of the campaign.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Palm Beach \u2013\u00a0President Donald Trump said Saturday that US forces had captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro after launching a “large scale strike” on the South American country. Trump’s stunning announcement follows months of steadily mounting US military and economic pressure on leftist leader Maduro and his country’s oil-export-dependent economy. “The United States of America […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":11164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,342,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-politics","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}