*We Could Have Killed Him, If -Trump
*Troops Bombed Military Installations, Port Ahead Capture
United States ( US) President Donald Trump has given an account of what really happened inside the safe house where the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, was captured at the weekend.
He said Maduro ran off to a safe room inside the complex, but only got as far as the door before US soldiers halted him by force.
Trump described the safe house as “a military fortress” located in the center of the country’s capital, Caracas, adding, however, that US troops knew exactly how to breach it.
Multiple news outlets also reported details of the critical moment Maduro was captured as well as the situation before and immediately after the dictator’s arrest.
In Maduro’s compound in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, as elite US Delta Force troops flooded in, Trump said the Venezuelan President – who had reportedly increased his reliance on Cuban bodyguards in recent months – attempted to flee to a safe room.
“He was trying to get to a safe place, which wasn’t safe, because we would have had the door blown up in about 47 seconds,” Trump said.
“He made it to the door. He was unable to close it. He got bum rushed so fast that he didn’t get into that [room].”
When asked if the US could have killed Maduro, an authoritarian leader who took over the presidency in 2013, if he had resisted arrest, Trump said: “It could have happened.”
On the US side, “a couple of guys were hit”, he said, but no US service members were killed. The Venezuelan authorities have not confirmed any casualties.
The Beginning, The Planning
For months, US spies had been monitoring Maduro’s every move.
A small team, including one source within the Venezuelan government, had been observing where the 63-year-old slept, what he ate, what he wore and even, according to top military officials, “his pets.”
Then, in early December, a planned mission dubbed ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ was finalised. It was the result of months of meticulous planning and rehearsals, which even included elite US troops creating an exact full-size replica of Maduro’s Caracas safe house to practise their entry routes.
The plan – which amounted to an extraordinary US military intervention in Latin America not seen since the Cold War – was closely guarded.
Congress was not informed or consulted ahead of time. With the precise details set, top military officials simply had to wait for the optimal conditions to launch.
They wanted to maximise the element of surprise, officials said at the weekend. There was a false start four days earlier when Trump gave approval, but they opted to wait for better weather and less cloud cover.
“Over the weeks through Christmas and New Year, the men and women of the United States military sat ready, patiently waiting for the right triggers to be met and the President to order us into action,” General Dan Caine, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, told a news conference weekend.
‘ Good Luck And godspeed’
The order from the President to begin the mission finally came at 22:46 EST on Friday (03:46 GMT on Saturday).
“We were going to do this four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, and then all of a sudden it opened up. And we said: go,” Trump himself told Fox & Friends on Saturday, hours after the overnight raid.
“He said to us, and we appreciate it… good luck and godspeed,” Gen. Caine said. Trump’s order came shortly before midnight in Caracas, giving the military most of the night to operate in darkness.
What followed was a two-hour-and-twenty-minute mission by air, land and sea that stunned many in Washington and around the world.
In terms of scale and precision, it was virtually unprecedented. And it drew immediate condemnation from several regional powers, with Brazil’s President Lula da Silva saying the violent capture of Venezuela’s leader set “yet another extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community”.
Trump did not follow 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 stream of the operation flanked by CIA Director John Ratcliffe and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“It was an incredible thing to see,” Trump said. “If you would have seen what happened, I mean, I watched it literally like I was watching a television show. And if you would’ve seen the speed, the violence… it’s just, it was an amazing thing, an amazing job that these people did.”
US Military Might On Display
In recent months, thousands of US troops have deployed to the region, joining an aircraft carrier and dozens of warships in the largest military build-up in decades as Trump has accused Maduro of drug-trafficking and narco-terrorism, and blown up dozens of small boats accused of ferrying drugs through the region.
But the first signs of Operation Absolute Resolve were in the skies. More than 150 aircraft – including bombers, fighter jets and reconnaissance planes – were ultimately deployed through the course of the night, according to US officials.
“It was very complex, extremely complex, the whole manoeuvre, the landings, the number of aircraft,” Trump told Fox News. “We had a fighter jet for every possible situation.”
The Strike
Loud explosions were heard in Caracas about 02:00 local time (06:00 GMT), and plumes of smoke were seen rising over the city.
“I heard a huge sound, a loud bang,” reporter Ana Vanessa Herrero told the BBC. “It moved all the windows. Immediately after I saw a huge cloud of smoke that almost blocked the entire view.”
She added: “Planes and helicopters were flying all over the city.”
Soon, videos showing numerous aircraft in the skies – and others showing the apparent aftermath of explosions – began to circulate widely on social media. One showed a convoy of helicopters flying at low altitude over Caracas as smoke rose from apparent detonations.
“We woke up at around 01:55 to the roar of explosions and the hum of planes flying over Caracas,” one witness. Daniela, told the BBC. “Everything was plunged into absolute darkness, illuminated only by the flashes of nearby detonations.”
She added: “Neighbours were messaging in the condominium group chat, all confused and unaware of what was happening [and] frightened by the blasts.”
BBC Verify has examined a number of videos showing explosions, fire and smoke in locations around Caracas to identify exactly which sites were targeted.
So far, it has confirmed five locations including Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base, an airfield known as La Carlota and Port La Guaira, Caracas’ main conduit to the Caribbean Sea.
Some of the US strikes targeted air defence systems and other military targets, officials said.
Trump also suggested the US cut the power in Caracas before the mission began, though he did not specify how.
“The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have,” he said. “It was dark and it was deadly.”
As strikes rang out around Caracas, US forces made their way into the city. They included members of the elite Delta Force, the US military’s top special mission unit, sources told the BBC’s US news partner CBS.
Inside Maduro’s Safe House
They were heavily armed – and carried a blowtorch in case they had to cut through the metal doors of Maduro’s safe house.
The troops arrived at Maduro’s location shortly after the strikes began at 02:01 local time, according to Gen. Caine.
Trump described the safe house as a military “fortress” in the heart of Caracas, saying: “They were in a ready position waiting for us. They knew we were coming.”
The troops took fire when they arrived, and one of the US helicopters was hit but was still able to fly. “The apprehension force descended into Maduro’s compound and moved with speed, precision and discipline,” Gen. Caine said.
“They just broke in, and they broke into places that were not really able to be broken into, you know, steel doors that were put there for just this reason,” Trump remarked.
Why Congress Was Not Briefed
It was only as the operation – which also saw Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, seized – was unfolding that Rubio began notifying US lawmakers about the action, a decision which has since prompted anger from some in the US Congress.
“Let me be clear: Nicolas Maduro is an illegitimate dictator. But launching military action without congressional authorisation and without a credible plan for what comes next is reckless,” said top Democrat Chuck Schumer, the party’s leader in the Senate.
Briefing Congress ahead of time would have endangered the mission, Rubio told reporters during the news conference weekend. “Congress has a tendency to leak,” Trump added. “This would not be good.”
*PHOTO CAPTION: President Maduro (centre,in handcuffs) arriving the Manhattan court today as a captive of the US.
