How the US captured Maduro

For months, US spies had been monitoring Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s every move.

A small team, including a Venezuelan government source, was monitoring where the 63-year-old man slept, what he ate, what he wore and even his “pets,” according to senior military officials.

Later, at the beginning of December, the plan called “Operation Absolute Determination” was completed. This was the result of months of meticulous planning and rehearsal; This even included creating a full-size replica of Maduro’s safe house in Caracas to test entry routes for elite US troops.

The planned mission – an extraordinary US military intervention in Latin America not seen since the Cold War – was closely guarded. Congress was not informed or consulted in advance. Once the exact details were determined, senior military officials had to wait for the most favorable conditions to arise.

Officials said Saturday they wanted to maximize the element of surprise. There was a false start when President Trump signed off four days ago, but they chose to wait for the weather to be better and the clouds to subside.

“For weeks through Christmas and New Year’s, the men and women of the United States military sat at attention and waited patiently for the right triggers to be met and for the president to order us to act,” Gen. Dan Caine, the nation’s highest-ranking officer, said at a news conference Saturday morning.

The president’s inauguration order finally came at 10:46 PM EDT on Friday. “We were going to do this four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, and then all of a sudden it opened up. So we said, ‘Go for it,'” Trump told Fox & Friends on Saturday in the hours after the overnight raid.

“That’s what he told us, and we appreciate that…good luck and good luck,” General Caine said. Trump’s order came shortly before midnight in Caracas, allowing the military to operate in darkness for most of the night.

What followed was a two-hour and twenty-minute mission by air, land, and sea that amazed many in Washington and around the world. It was almost unprecedented in terms of scale and precision. And Brazilian President Lula da Silva was immediately condemned by many regional powers, saying the violent capture of the Venezuelan leader set “another extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community.”

Trump did not monitor the mission from the White House situation room. Instead, he was surrounded by his advisers at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he watched a live feed of the operation, flanked by CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“It was an incredible thing to see,” Trump said Saturday. “If you could see what it was, I mean, I literally watched it like I was watching a television show. And if you could see the speed, the intensity… it was just, it was an incredible thing, it’s an amazing job that these people did.”

In recent months, thousands of U.S. troops joined an aircraft carrier and dozens of warships in the largest military buildup in decades as President Trump accused Maduro of drug trafficking and narco-terrorism and blew up dozens of small boats accused of transporting drugs in the region.

But the first signs of Operation Absolute Resolve were in the skies. According to US officials, more than 150 aircraft, including bombers, fighters and reconnaissance planes, were deployed throughout the night.

“The whole maneuver, the landings, the number of planes, it was very complex, extremely complex,” Trump said on Fox News. “We had a fighter jet for every possible situation.”

Loud explosions were heard in Caracas around 02:00 local time and clouds of smoke were seen rising over the city. “I heard a huge noise, a loud explosion,” reporter Ana Vanessa Herrero told the BBC. “It moved all the windows. Immediately afterwards, I saw a huge cloud of smoke that blocked almost all view.”

“There were planes and helicopters flying all over the city,” he said.

Soon, videos showing multiple planes in the sky and the aftermath of explosions began to spread widely on social media. One image showed a convoy of helicopters flying at low altitude over Caracas as smoke rose from the explosions.

BBC Verify reviewed a series of videos showing explosions, fires and smoke in places around Caracas to determine exactly which areas were targeted.

So far, it has confirmed five locations, including Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base, an airport known as La Carlota, and Port La Guaira, Caracas’ main conduit to the Caribbean Sea.

Some of the U.S. strikes targeted air defense systems and other military targets, officials said. Trump also suggested the United States shut off power in Caracas before the mission begins, but did not specify how.

“The lights of Caracas were largely turned off because of the particular expertise we had,” he said. “It was dark and deadly.”

As strikes were heard around Caracas, US forces entered the city. Sources speaking to the BBC’s US partner CBS said that among them were members of the elite Delta Force, the US military’s highest-level special mission unit. They were heavily armed and carried a blowtorch in case they had to cut through the metal doors of Maduro’s safe house.

According to General Caine, soldiers reached Maduro’s location shortly after the attacks began at 02:01 local time. Trump described the safe house as a heavily fortified military “fortress” in the heart of Caracas. “They were waiting for us in a ready position. They knew we were coming,” he said.

When they arrived, the soldiers opened fire and one of the American helicopters was hit but still managed to fly. “The capture force descended on Maduro’s compound and moved quickly, precisely and with discipline,” General Caine said.

“They came in and they broke into places that really couldn’t be broken, which is the steel doors that were put there for that very reason,” Trump said.

However, as the operation in which Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores was captured developed, Foreign Minister Rubio began to inform the MPs about the action; This decision has since sparked outrage from some in Congress.

“Let me be clear: Nicolas Maduro is an illegitimate dictator. But launching military action without the authorization of Congress and without a credible plan for what happens next is reckless,” said top Democrat Chuck Schumer, the party’s leader in the Senate.

Giving Congress advance notice would jeopardize the mission, Rubio told reporters at Saturday’s news conference. “Congress has a tendency to leak,” Trump added. “That wouldn’t be good.”

As elite US troops poured into Maduro’s compound, Trump said the Venezuelan president, who has increased his reliance on Cuban guards in recent months, was trying to escape to a safe room. “He was trying to get somewhere that wasn’t safe because we could have blown the door open in about 47 seconds,” he said.

“He got to the door. He couldn’t close the door,” Trump said. “He became a jerk so quickly that he didn’t get into it [room]”

“That could happen,” Trump said when asked if the United States could kill Maduro, the authoritarian leader who took over the presidency in 2013, if he resisted arrest. He said “a few people were shot” on the US side, but no US soldiers were killed. Venezuelan officials have not confirmed any casualties.

The United States had previously offered a reward of $50 million for information leading to Maduro’s arrest. But at 04.20 local time on Saturday, the helicopters were leaving Venezuelan territory with Maduro and his wife under the supervision of the Justice Department and heading to New York, where they are expected to eventually face criminal charges.

Almost exactly an hour later, Trump announced to the world the news of his capture. “Maduro and his wife will soon face the full force of American justice,” he said.