The announcement was made by Trump after the bombings that were reported in the Venezuelan capital
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The president of the United States, Donald Trump, confirmed on Saturday that the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was captured and transferred out of Venezuela, after a large-scale military operation carried out by U.S. forces.
The information was released by the president himself through a public message on social media and confirmed in a press conference, in which he stated that the United States successfully carried out an attack against the narcoterrorist regime. According to Trump's account, Maduro was captured along with his wife and expelled from the country as part of the operation executed by the elite unit Delta Force.
La foto del dictador Maduro capturado.
The announcement came a few hours after strong explosions were reported in Venezuela, particularly in the city of Caracas, where residents and journalists reported detonations, overflights of military aircraft and power outages during the early hours of the morning. The Chavista regime had previously denounced attacks on military targets and had declared a state of emergency throughout the national territory.
In his message, Trump maintained that the operation was successfully carried out in a surgical manner without any casualties for the U.S. Army. The U.S. president framed the actions as law enforcement, without expanding for the moment on the dictator's final destination or on the full scope of the operation.
The confirmation of Maduro's capture marked a historic turning point in the Venezuelan crisis. For years, the United States accused the Chavista regime of leading an international network of drug trafficking, corruption, and systematic human rights violations, while Caracas rejected those accusations and denounced alleged attempts at overthrow.
Hours before the announcement, the U.S. government had issued security alerts for its citizens in Venezuela, recommending that they take shelter and leave the country as soon as it was safe to do so. In parallel, countries in the region were closely following the escalation, after leaders allied with Chavismo denounced what had happened as a "coup against democracy".
Nicolás Maduro
The United States made it clear that Maduro's fall doesn't imply an immediate withdrawal. In his press conference, Donald Trump stated that Washington will maintain an active presence in Venezuela, with a special focus on Caracas, until it guarantees minimum security conditions to set in motion a democratic transition. The message aimed to avoid a scenario of chaos or a power vacuum after the blow to the Chavista leadership.
In that context, the U.S. president warned that his government is prepared to intensify the intervention if the situation worsens. He stated that the United States doesn't rule out a second wave of attacks against remnants of the Chavista apparatus if there is an attempt to reorganize a military response or if the civilian population is threatened.
Trump prometió al pueblo cubano que buscará ayudarlo a liberarse de la tiranía comunista que actualmente los azota
With Maduro and his vice president Delcy Rodriguez out of the country - "coincidentally" she was in Moscow - and the internal power structure readjusting, Washington is seeking to set the pace of the process in order to prevent Chavismo from reinventing itself under another figure and to try to block the democratic transition.
