US President Donald Trump says Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro has been captured after the US conducted a ‘large scale strike’ on the country.
At least seven explosions have rung out as low-flying aircraft swept through the capital of Venezuela, with Mr Maduro’s government accusing the United States of attacking civilian and military installations following a months-long pressure campaign.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ban on US commercial flights in Venezuelan airspace because of “ongoing military activity” before the explosions in Caracas.
There was no immediate comment from the US about its role, the targets or the purpose of the strikes, but Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social that further details would be delivered later, about 5am AEDT.
“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,” he said.
“This operation was done in conjunction with US law enforcement.”
The explosions in Caracas sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report hearing and seeing the blasts.
The apparent attack lasted less than 30 minutes, but it was unclear if more actions were ahead.
Two hours later, parts of the city remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.
Smoke rose from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without power.
The explosions come as the Trump administration has escalated a pressure campaign on Maduro, who has been charged with narco-terrorism in the US.
The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels in what was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US began strikes in September.
President Donald Trump had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land following months of attacks on boats accused of carrying drugs.
Maduro has decried the US military operations as a thinly veiled effort to oust him.
Pentagon referred requests for comment to the White House, which did not immediately respond.
Trump is at his private club in Florida, where he has spent the past two weeks for the holiday season.
Venezuela’s government called on its supporters to take to the streets.
“The Bolivarian government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilisation plans and repudiate this imperialist attack,” it said in a statement.
Maduro had “ordered all national defence plans to be implemented” and declared “a state of external disturbance”.
The website of the US embassy in Venezuela, a post that has been closed since 2019, warned American citizens in the country to shelter in place, saying it was “aware of reports of explosions in and around Caracas”.
The Trump administration has escalated military actions in the region.
The US has seized sanctioned oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, and Trump ordered a blockade of others in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American country’s economy.
The US military has been attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since early September.
As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115.
They followed a major build-up of American forces in the waters off South America, including the arrival in November of the nation’s most advanced aircraft carrier, which added thousands more troops to what was already the largest military presence in the region in generations.
Trump has justified the boat strikes as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US and asserted that the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
On Friday, Venezuela said it was open to negotiating an agreement with the US to combat drug trafficking.
Maduro also said in an interview that the US wanted to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through the pressure campaign.
