Airstrikes, helicopters and a snatch squad with a blowtorch: how the US raid on Caracas unfolded | Venezuela

AWhen jolted from their beds shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday, many Caracas residents searched for an innocent explanation for the racket that had interrupted their sleep: an exploding air conditioner, a tropical storm, an earthquake. Or perhaps a festive display of pyrotechnics over Venezuela’s mountainous capital.

“I thought maybe it was fireworks,” Carlos Hurtado, a resident of the 23 de Enero subdivision in the west of the city, recalled of the moment he was awakened by a mysterious sequence of rumblings and explosions.

But as plumes of smoke rose above the country’s largest city, air raid sirens blared and WhatsApp groups lit up with shaky cellphone videos of tangerine-colored explosions, it became clear that the pre-dawn detonations were not the result of a natural disaster or faulty device.

After five months of intensifying U.S. military pressure, Venezuela was under attack, with missiles raining down on military bases, airfields and key infrastructure in the capital and surrounding region.

“They are bombing La Carlota and Fuerte Tiuna,” a resident of a middle-class neighborhood called Sebucán warned neighbors in a six-second voice message, referring to two of the city’s most important military installations. La Carlota is an air base in the heart of Caracas; Fuerte Tiuna is a heavily fortified military complex long considered the residence of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Video footage captured by a group of hikers apparently camping in the mountains above Caracas recalls images of the “shock and awe” air campaign against Baghdad in March 2003.

“You couldn’t see the planes, but you could hear them hovering in the sky,” said Ligia Uribe de Torres, 74, whose apartment overlooks the La Carlota runway.

Ricardo Sans, 69, an engineer who lives in the mountains around Caracas, remembers jumping out of bed and throwing himself to the ground after hearing a loud “vibration” around 2 a.m.

Looking out the window, Sans saw between four and six helicopters flying over his house in the darkness and smoke billowing from a defensive position near another of Caracas’ most symbolic addresses: the Cuartel de la Montaña barracks where the remains of Maduro’s mentor, Hugo Chávez, were displayed after his death in 2013.

Unlike other teary-eyed residents, Sans had no doubt about what he was witnessing and began calling his friends and family. “I immediately thought that this was what most of Venezuela was waiting for – and indeed it was,” he said.

The precise details of the US airstrike on Venezuela, later confirmed by Donald Trump and Venezuelan authorities, remain unclear.

But as day broke over Caracas, its residents – and the world – received even more sensational news. Trump announced that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were “captured” in the raid and flown to a warship in the Caribbean Sea.

“They were taken out in seconds. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump told Fox News.

Pam Bondi, the attorney general of the United States, accused the couple of being “international drug traffickers,” declaring on social media: “They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil, in American courts.”

Citing U.S. officials, CBS News reported that Maduro was arrested by members of the elite military unit Delta Force, responsible for the 2019 assassination of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. There was speculation that the raid was carried out with the help of an elite army helicopter unit called the Night Stalkers, whose pilots were involved in the 2011 assassination of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Speaking Saturday afternoon, Trump and senior military officials gave more details about how Maduro and Flores were tracked to a “very heavily guarded…fortress” during what the president called Operation Absolute Resolve.

“They were taken out in seconds,” Trump said of the pair, saying Maduro tried in vain to escape to a secure room. “He was trying to get involved, but he got pushed around so quickly that he couldn’t do it,” the US president said, adding that although some US forces were hit, none were killed. The troops carried a blowtorch to blast their way through the steel doors.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said the special forces team arrived at Maduro’s residence around 2 a.m. The troops engaged in “multiple self-defense engagements” as they fled Venezuelan territory.

Maduro’s allies, including Defense Minister Gen. Vladimir Padrino López and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, denounced the U.S. “invasion” and urged citizens to take up arms against foreign aggressors. “We strongly reject this criminal, despicable and fascist attack by Yankee imperialism against our homeland,” Carmen Meléndez, mayor of Caracas, said on public television, calling on citizens to rally around the “valiant…great helmsman” of Venezuela.

Speaking by telephone to the same network, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez demanded immediate proof from the White House that Maduro and Flores were alive. She also called on citizens to resist, even though Reuters reported that Rodríguez was in Moscow herself.

Aside from the cry of the yellow and blue “guacamaya” macaws for which Caracas is famous, many city streets were eerily silent Saturday morning as people prepared for an uncertain future. “Right now it feels like a pandemic morning… You can’t hear a single car,” one resident said. “It’s like waking up in the middle of a lockdown.”

Trump officials celebrated the supposed start of a new era for the oil-rich country after Maduro’s 12-year grip on power was apparently broken, 18 months after he was accused of stealing the 2024 election. “A new dawn for Venezuela! The tyrant is gone,” tweeted Christopher Landau, US deputy secretary of state.

But in Caracas, many doubted that democratic change was near. There is no immediate indication that the presumptive winner of the 2024 elections, Edmundo González, could return from exile with his main ally, Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado. In a statement, Machado said she was preparing to take power and that Venezuela was entering “decisive hours.”

Phil Gunson, an analyst with the International Crisis Group based in Caracas, said: “It appears, from what I’ve seen so far, that this was an operation to remove Maduro from power – but this is not regime change. The regime remains in power.”

Gunson said he thought it was possible that the U.S. blitz would precipitate an armed uprising against what remained of Maduro’s nominally left-wing regime. But it seemed more likely that another hard-line member of Maduro’s political movement would simply take his place, plunging the country further into dictatorship.

“Venezuelans could end up in a worse situation, ironically, after Maduro leaves. It’s very early… but it’s certainly not the time to hang out the banners and open the champagne,” Gunson said. “This is just the beginning.”

Hurtado said that after the attack, members of pro-regime paramilitary gangs known as “colectivos” took to the streets in his neighborhood in commando gear.

“We don’t know if they will allow us to go out and buy food, or if there will be free movement. Normally at this time of year there is always a party, but at the moment there is no one there. [it’s] as if there had been a power outage, everything is silent.