• Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been captured and flown out of Venezuela after the US carried out a large scale strike on the capital city of Caracas, US President Donald Trump announced. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a GOP senator that Maduro will stand trial in the US.

• Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said the government is unaware of the whereabouts of Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, adding the US attack has cost the lives of officials, military personnel and civilians across the country.

• A CNN team earlier witnessed several explosions in Caracas and reported some areas of the city were without electricity. The first blast was recorded at approximately 1.50am local time on Saturday (0.50am E.T.).

The US operation in Venezuela appears to have been carried out with “impressive speed,” likely with the involvement of special operations forces, according to a munitions and intelligence specialist.

N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of the research company Armament Research Services, told CNN Saturday that the operation “appears at first blush to have been carried out with impressive speed and precision.”

“In addition to at least a dozen helicopters, the operation will have been supported by a robust air package comprising both fixed and rotary wing assets, including specialist aircraft,” Jenzen-Jones said.

The operation would have required a large amount of planning, but so far, the “number and nature” of the strikes reported suggests a “limited target set.”

For its part, Venezuela has “robust air defence systems and locally distributed military, paramilitary, and law enforcement forces” in Caracas, Jenzen-Jones said, meaning that a raid such as this should have been “difficult to conduct with the speed and precision exhibited here.”

“In practice, corruption, poor training, lack of maintenance, and other factors significantly reduce this threat,” he said.

Trinidad and Tobago’s foreign ministry says the Caribbean nation did not participate in the US military operations on neighboring Venezuela Saturday.

“Trinidad and Tobago continues to maintain peaceful relations with the people of Venezuela,” a statement from the ministry read.

For context: The twin-island nation had been providing support to the US military during its campaign against drug trafficking in the Caribbean.

In recent weeks, it allowed a US warship to dock on its shore, hosted drills with American troops, granted US military aircraft permission to transit its airports, and let American forces install a radar system on its soil.

The country said the moves were part of its commitments to cooperate with the US on regional security.

The United States has conducted a large scale strike on Venezuela’s capital city, with its President Nicolas Maduro being captured and flown out of the country, according to US President Donald Trump.

Here’s what we know about the operation and its aftermath so far:

CNN’s Michael Rios, Simone Pathe and Sophie Tanno contributed to this reporting.

The US arrested Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to stand trial in the US, according to a Republican senator who says he spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“He informed me that Nicolás Maduro has been arrested by U.S. 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,” Utah Sen. Mike Lee posted on X early Saturday.

“This action likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack,” Lee added.

“He anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in U.S. custody,” the senator continued of Rubio.

CNN has reached out to the State Department.

Earlier Saturday morning, Lee had raised concerns about the strike, writing on X: “I look forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force.”

The US only “partially” achieved what it set out to do by attacking Venezuela, the country’s Vice President for Policy, Citizen Security and Peace Diosdado Cabello said.

He insisted the country remains calm and knows what it must do moving forward.

The Trump administration has for years said that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was a criminal and has looked to prosecute him through the US legal system.

In 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first term, Maduro was charged in the Southern District of New York for “narco-terrorism,” conspiracy to import cocaine, and related charges.

The Trump administration offered a $15 million bounty for the arrest of the Venezuelan leader. That bounty was increased to $25 million in the waning days of the Biden administration, in early January 2025, and was increased to $50 million in August 2025 after Trump took office for a second term and designated Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. The administration has claimed that Maduro is the leader of that group, which it describes as a criminal organization.

“This allegation, this claim, that the Maduro regime is a narcoterrorist organization is not on the basis of political talk or speculation. It is on the basis of evidence provided to a grand jury in the Southern District of New York that returned an indictment,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a press conference last month.

Trump said in a social media post early Saturday that Maduro had been captured “in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement” and promised more details later in the day.

Republican US Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said he spoke with Rubio on Saturday morning and the top US diplomat told him “that Nicolás Maduro has 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.”

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said in a post on X that the administration’s operation brought “a new dawn for Venezuela.”

“The tyrant is gone. He will now — finally — face justice for his crimes,” Landau wrote.

Venezuela has requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council in response to the US attack on the country, Foreign Minister Yván Gil Pinto said.

“No cowardly attack will prevail against the strength of this people, who will emerge victorious,” he said on Telegram, sharing the letter sent to the UN.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned what it called an “act of armed aggression against Venezuela” by the United States, calling any “excuses” given to justify such actions “untenable.”

“We reaffirm our solidarity with the Venezuelan people and our support for the Bolivarian leadership’s course of action aimed at protecting the country’s national interests and sovereignty,” a statement from the foreign ministry said.

The ministry added that Latin America must “remain a zone of peace.”

The Russian Embassy in capital city Caracas is operating as usual, according to the ministry, which added: “At present, there is no information about any Russian citizens who have been affected.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was a long-time ally of Venezuela’s populist leader Hugo Chávez and succeeded him after he died of cancer in 2013.

The former bus driver and union leader never had the popular base nor charisma that Chavez possessed – and his victory in the 2013 presidential election was contested by the opposition.

During Maduro’s tenure since then, Venezuela has seen bouts of unrest and economic crisis, amid a growing raft of US sanctions and mismanagement of the country’s critical oil industry.

In 2017, Maduro sought to redefine and expand the president’s powers to bypass the National Assembly, which was then controlled by the opposition, amid weeks of street protests in the capital Caracas.

In 2018, during an election denounced by opposition leaders and the international community, Maduro won another six-year term, but the election was widely denounced by the international community as illegitimate.

The first Trump administration charged Maduro with narco-terrorism in 2020.

The Venezuelan regime “remains plagued by criminality and corruption,” said then US Attorney General Barr. “For more than 20 years, Maduro and a number of high-ranking colleagues allegedly conspired with the [Colombian guerilla group] FARC, causing tons of cocaine to enter and devastate American communities.”

In response, Maduro called US President Donald Trump a “racist cowboy”.

There were further accusations of electoral fraud when Maduro declared the winner of the last presidential contest. He was sworn in last January.

Since then, the Trump administration has stepped up economic and military pressure on the Maduro regime.

On August 7, US Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced a $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Maduro.

Maduro’s wife, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, is a lawyer and has been a deputy in the National Assembly for the last ten years.

While Venezuela government officials are yet to comment on the US strikes, information released by the ministry of defense shows that Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino López has called for a “massive deployment” of military forces in Venezuela, CNN’s Mary Mena said from Caracas as she described the initial reaction in the country.

For now, the city of Caracas remains calm, she said, and has been for the past couple of hours. “We listened to many airplanes and helicopters passing by, but right now the city remains quiet, for the past two hours.”

She added, “We haven’t heard people for example coming to the streets, and the state channel keeps repeating this message from the ministry of defense saying they want people to remain calm and they will deploy military forces across the country.”

Most citizens, Mena continued, appear to have decided to remain at home for now and wait for more news.

Mena said several blasts could be heard across Caracas at around 2 a.m. local time on Saturday morning.

“But right now, the capital city is in silence,” she added.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez says the government doesn’t know the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

US President Donald Trump announced early Saturday morning that the US carried out a “large scale strike against Venezuela” and that Maduro and his wife had been captured and removed from the country.

She added the US attack has cost the lives of officials, military personnel and civilians across the country.

Today’s strikes on Venezuela and the reported capture of the country’s President Nicolas Maduro is the “most strident foreign military intervention” of US President Donald Trump’s presidency, according to CNN Chief International Security Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh.

“And it shows, really, that Trump was serious in his desire to see Maduro gone, that he’s managed to, it seems, execute that in a matter of hours through a particularly violent moment over Caracas skies,” Paton Walsh continued.

Maduro “is a president with some significant assistance from Russia and China, snatched from his capital in the middle of the night by the United States military,” he said, calling today’s events “a startling moment” that “shows the level of freedom with which President Trump believes he operates globally,” he said.

Iran, a key ally of Venezuela, has condemned the US military attack against the South American country, according to Iranian state outlet Press TV.

The Iranian foreign ministry said the alleged attack violates Venezuela’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as the UN charter, Press TV reported.

Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López says the US attack on Saturday impacted urban areas across Venezuela with missiles and rockets fired from American combat helicopters.

He said Venezuela is currently gathering information about the number of people killed and wounded, and confirmed the Fort Tiuna military installation in Caracas was attacked.

Lopez insisted the country would resist the presence of foreign troops in the country.

“This invasion represents the greatest outrage the country has suffered,” he added.

President Donald Trump announced early Saturday morning that the US carried out a “large scale strike against Venezuela” and that President Nicolas Maduro and his wife have been captured and removed from the country.

“This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago,” he added.

In a brief phone interview with The New York Times shortly after his announcement, Trump hailed what he called a “brilliant operation.”

“A lot of good planning and lot of great, great troops and great people,” Trump told the Times. “It was a brilliant operation, actually.”

According to the Times, Trump declined to answer questions about whether he’d sought congressional authority for the strike, saying he’d address it at his upcoming news conference.

Dramatic footage verified by CNN shows a large blaze and explosions at an airport in Higuerote, Venezuela. Multiple balls of fire can be seen arcing through the sky above the fire, which appears to be an air defense system burning.

This is at least the second Venezuelan airport hit in strikes early Saturday morning.

One resident in the coastal Venezuelan city of Higuerote told CNN he was woken up by what he initially thought were fireworks before hearing more explosions across the town with the sky turning red and neighbors running outside and screaming.

Higuerote is a city on Venezuela’s coast, around 85 kilometers (52 miles) east of Caracas.

Venezuelan news outlets Efecto Cocuyo and Tal Cual Digital previously reported explosions were heard in La Guaira state north of the capital Caracas, and at Higuerote.

“First I thought it was something like a firework,” the man, 23, said, asking for anonymity for security reasons.

“Everything was shaking after that. The explosions looked like they were controlled but as if they destroyed all the airport.

“Now, two hours later, I have not heard any sirens from ambulances, police or firefighters.

“The last bomb fell 40 minutes ago. I haven’t heard anything after that, most of my friends and people I know are all scared and posting videos on WhatsApp statuses. It’s all a mess.”

The Venezuelan opposition says it has no official comment regarding the ongoing situation in the country.

Footage verified by CNN shows smoke rising above Caracas, as several dual-rotor helicopters fly over the scene.

The Venezuelan military is not known to operate any dual-rotor aircraft, according to the aviation journal FlightGlobal.

President Donald Trump is at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, where he’s been spending an unusually busy holiday period focused on foreign affairs.

He was slated to receive an intelligence briefing Friday evening, according to his official White House schedule, and has hosted two foreign leaders since Christmas — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Christmas Day, Trump announced he’d ordered a deadly strike on Islamic State terrorists in Nigeria. He’s scheduled to return to the White House on Sunday evening.