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In a Saturday morning interview on \u201cFox & Friends Weekend,\u201d Trump laid out the details of the overnight strike, after which he said Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were flown by helicopter to a U.S. warship. Later Saturday, Trump and other officials gave more details during a news conference from his Florida residence.<\/p>\n
Trump described Maduro as being \u201chighly guarded\u201d in a presidential palace that was \u201clike a fortress.\u201d Maduro had nearly made it to a safe room inside it, Trump told reporters, although \u201che was unable to close it.\u201d<\/p>\n
American forces were armed with \u201cmassive blowtorches,\u201d which they would have used to cut through steel walls had Maduro locked himself in the room, Trump said earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt had what they call a safety space, where it\u2019s solid steel all around,\u201d Trump said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t get that space closed. He was trying to get into it, but he got bum-rushed right so fast that he didn\u2019t get into that. We were prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces had rehearsed their maneuvers for months, learning everything about Maduro \u2014 where he was and what he ate, as well as details of his pets and the clothes he wore.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again, and again,\u201d Caine said, saying his forces were \u201cset\u201d by early December. \u201cNot to get it right, but to ensure we cannot get it wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, Trump said U.S. forces had practiced their extraction on a replica building.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey actually built a house which was identical to the one they went into with all the same, all that steel all over the place,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Trump said the U.S. operation took place in darkness, although he did not detail how that had happened. He said the U.S. turned off \u201calmost all of the lights in Caracas,\u201d the capital of Venezuela. At the news conference, he said the city\u2019s lights \u201cwere largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis thing was so organized,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they go into a dark space with machine guns facing them all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least seven explosions were heard in Caracas. The attack, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described as part of \u201cmassive joint military and law enforcement raid,\u201d lasted less than 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s vice president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, who under law takes power, said some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed.<\/p>\n
Trump said a few U.S. members of the operation were injured but he believed no one was killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple of guys were hit, but they came back and they\u2019re supposed to be in pretty good shape,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Republican president said the U.S. had lost no aircraft, but that a helicopter was \u201chit pretty hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to do it because it\u2019s a war,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In his news conference, Trump did not mention the injuries or helicopter damage, stressing that no American lives had been lost. Caine said the helicopter that was struck was able to safely fly on its return.<\/p>\n
Trump said U.S. forces held off on conducting the operation for days, waiting for cloud cover to pass because the \u201cweather has to be perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe waited four days,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were going to do this four days ago, three days ago, two days ago. And then all of a sudden it opened up and we said, go. And I\u2019ll tell you, it\u2019s, it was just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caine said that on Friday night, \u201cthe weather broke just enough, clearing a path that only the most skilled aviators in the world could move through.\u201d He said helicopters flew low to the water to enter Venezuela and were covered above by protective U.S. aircraft.<\/p>\n
Caine detailed the aircraft and U.S. forces involved in the operation, which he said was named \u201cAbsolute Resolve\u201d:<\/p>\n
\u2014more than 150 aircraft launched from across the Western Hemisphere, including F-18, F-22 and F-35 fighter jets, B-1 bombers and drones.<\/p>\n
\u2014Trump gave the go-ahead at 10:46 p.m. EST Friday.<\/p>\n
\u2014U.S. forces reached Maduro\u2019s compound at 1:01 a.m. EST Saturday and were back over water headed away at 3:29 a.m. EST.<\/p>\n
\u2014U.S. service members involved in the operation ranged in age from 20 to 49<\/p>\n
Trump said that Maduro and Flores were flown by helicopter to a U.S. warship and would go on to New York to face charges. He later posted on Truth Social a photo of the Venezuelan leader, wearing in a gray sweatsuit, protective headphones and blindfold. The caption said: \u201cNicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Justice Department released an indictment accusing the pair of having an alleged role in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.<\/p>\n
The raid was a dramatic escalation from a series of strikes the U.S. military has carried out on what Trump has said were drug carrying boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since early September. There had been 35 known strikes that killed at least 115 people.<\/p>\n
On Dec. 29, Trump said the U.S. struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs \u201cload up.\u201d The CIA was behind\u00a0the drone strike\u00a0at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels. It was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began its strikes in September.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#U.S #military #aircraft #capture #Maduro #including #stealth #fighters #bombers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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