More than 150 U.S. military aircraft were used in the operation to capture Venezuela’s Maduro, including stealth fighters and bombers

After months of mounting military pressure on Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, President Donald Trump ordered a bold operation in the South American country to arrest its leader and take him to the United States where his administration planned to put him on trial.

In a Saturday morning interview on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Trump detailed the overnight raid, later saying that Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, were flown by helicopter to a U.S. warship. Later Saturday, Trump and other officials provided more details during a news conference from his residence in Florida.

Trump says Maduro was in a ‘castle’.

Trump described Maduro as being “heavily guarded” in a presidential palace that “looks like a castle.” Trump told reporters that Maduro almost made it to a safe room inside, although he “couldn’t close it.”

Trump had previously said that US forces were armed with “huge blowtorches” that they would have used to break through the steel walls if Maduro had locked himself in the room.

“It had what they call a safe space, where there was steel everywhere,” Trump said. “He didn’t close that space. He was trying to get in, but he rushed so fast he couldn’t get in. We were ready.”

The US Army prepared for several months

Gen. Dan Kaine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said US forces had trained for their maneuvers for months and knew everything about Maduro — where he was and what he ate, as well as details about his pets and the clothes he was wearing.

“We think, we evolve, we train, we train, we debrief, we train over and over again,” Keane said, saying his forces were “ready” by early December. “Not to get it right, but to make sure we can’t get it wrong.”

Earlier, Trump said that American forces trained to extract it from a replica building.

“They actually built a house identical to the house they walked into with the same thing, all that steel everywhere,” Trump said.

“We turned off all the lights.”

Trump said that the American operation took place in the dark, but did not provide details about how this happened. He said that the United States turned off “almost all the lights in Caracas,” the capital of Venezuela. He said at the press conference that the city’s lights were “largely turned off because of certain experiences we have.”

“This thing was very organized,” he said. “They go into a dark place and there are machine guns everywhere.”

At least seven explosions were heard in Caracas. The attack, which Defense Minister Pete Hegseth described as part of a “large-scale joint military and law enforcement raid,” lasted less than 30 minutes.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who holds power by law, said some Venezuelan civilians and military personnel were killed.

Trump says two men were injured

Trump said a small number of Americans were injured in the operation, but he believes no one was killed.

“A number of guys were hurt, but they came back and should be in pretty good shape,” he said.

The Republican president said that the United States did not lose any aircraft, but a helicopter “suffered a heavy hit.”

He added: “We had to do this because it is war.”

In his press conference, Trump did not mention the injuries or damage to the helicopter, stressing that no American lives were lost. Kane said the helicopter that was bombed was able to fly safely upon its return.

Weather was a factor

Trump said that American forces refrained from carrying out the operation for several days, waiting for the cloud cover to pass because “the weather has to be perfect.”

“We waited four days,” he said. “We were going to do this four days ago, three days ago, two days ago. Then all of a sudden it opened up and we said, ‘Go.’ And I’ll tell you, it was pretty amazing.”

On Friday night, “the weather stopped enough that it cleared a path that only the most skilled pilots in the world could navigate,” Keane said. He added that the helicopters flew low over the water to enter Venezuela and were covered by American aircraft for protection above.

Operation Absolute Torque in numbers

Keane provided details of the US aircraft and forces involved in the operation, which he said was dubbed “The Absolute Solution”:

– More than 150 aircraft were launched from across the Western Hemisphere, including F-18, F-22 and F-35 fighter jets, B-1 bombers and drones.

Trump gave the go-ahead at 10:46 p.m. EST on Friday.

– US forces arrived at Maduro’s compound at 1:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday and were back over the water, heading away, at 3:29 a.m. EDT.

The ages of the US service members involved in the operation ranged from 20 to 49 years

Where is Maduro now?

Trump said Maduro and Flores were transferred by helicopter to a US warship and would head to New York to face charges. He later posted on Truth Social a photo of the Venezuelan leader, wearing a gray tracksuit, protective headphones, and blindfolded. The caption read: “Nicolas Maduro aboard the USS Iwo Jima.”

The Ministry of Justice issued an indictment accusing the couple of being involved in a drug-related terrorist conspiracy.

Months of escalating measures

The raid was a major escalation in a series of strikes carried out by the US military on what Trump said were boats carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific since early September. There were 35 known raids that killed at least 115 people.

On December 29, Trump said the United States bombed a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs were “loaded.” The CIA was behind the drone strike on a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels. This was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan territory since the United States began its strikes in September.

This story originally appeared on Fortune.com

Don’t miss more hot News like this! Click here to discover the latest in Business news!

2026-01-03 19:38:00