The United States said it had struck Venezuela and captured its long-serving President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, after months of accusing him of drug-running and illegitimacy in power, marking a dramatic escalation in geopolitical tensions.
“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the country,” President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Washington has not made such a direct intervention in Latin America since the invasion of Panama in 1989 to depose military leader Manuel Noriega, over similar allegations. At the same time, Trump has threatened to come to the aid of protesters in Iran if security forces fired on them, days into unrest that has left several dead and posed the biggest internal threat to Iranian authorities in years.
