CARACAS, Venezuela — President Donald Trump said Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago Club that the United States will control Venezuela for an unspecified period after a U.S. operation captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are aboard the USS Iwo Jima and bound for New York after they were captured by U.S. forces and removed from Venezuela by helicopter, Trump said. Overnight, explosions shook multiple locations across Caracas, including at key military facilities, and aircraft were seen flying over the Venezuelan capital.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said earlier Saturday that the government did not know where Maduro or the first lady were and demanded “immediate proof of life.” The country’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, described the U.S. attack as “cowardly.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Saturday morning that Maduro and his wife were facing federal charges in the Southern District of New York, where Maduro was indicted in March 2020 on narco-terrorism charges. Trump has accused him of heading a narco-trafficking gang that is flooding the U.S. with illicit drugs — a claim Maduro denies.
Loud blasts jolted the area around the Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda air base in the eastern Caracas community of La Carlota early Saturday, nearby residents said, causing smoke to rise from one of the air base’s hangars. One woman with a clear view of the base from her apartment said the detonations were “deafening.” Residents in several parts of the city, including near La Carlota, reported power outages.