U.S. Troops Captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro

On January 3, 2026, United States made an airstrike on Venezuela, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Celia Flores. The operation, codenamed Operation Absolute Resolve, began before 2:00 AM local time in Venezuela. The U.S. military bombed several locations, including military installations throughout northern Venezuela, including the capital Caracas, in an attempt to disable Venezuela’s air defense systems, and more than 100 aircraft were deployed, after which President Maduro declared a state of emergency. President Maduro and First Lady Celia Flores were later captured by the U.S. military and taken to the USS Iwo Jima. An anonymous senior Venezuelan official told The New York Times that 80 people, including presidential security personnel and civilians, were killed, and that the number could rise. Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodríguez denounced the capture as a kidnapping.

Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia says U.S. hasn’t gone far enough. He said in a video on social media Sunday that the U.S. removal of Maduro was “an important step but not enough.” and, “The normalization of the country can only be achieved after the release of all political prisoners,” said Gonzales, who was recognized by the U.S. as the winner of the last election in 2024 despite Maduro’s claim of victory.

He continued, “Once the will of the people is respected without ambiguity — which was expressed by the majority of the people on July 28 2024 — only then can a real process of democratic transition can really begin.”

Opposition leader María Corina Machado released a statement Saturday morning addressing the nation after Maduro’s capture calling for Gonzalez to be recognized as the legitimately elected president of Venezuela and for him to assume power over the government and military.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration justified the operation as a law-enforcement action, with military support, that the president has “inherent constitutional authority” to undertake. Officials in the United Nations, the U.S., and other countries, as well as international law experts said the raid violated the U.N. Charter and Venezuela’s sovereignty. Other reactions around the world included protests and celebrations by the Venezuelan diaspora.

In a press conference on Jan. 3, President Trump claimed the United States was going to “run” Venezuela, saying: “We are going to run the country until we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”

Trump indicated that Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s deputy, had been sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president, and would act as a partner in letting the United States run the country.

“She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Trump said. Venezuela’s Supreme Court later confirmed it had sworn Rodríguez in as acting president.

Some officials in the United States and other countries have questioned the legal basis for the attack. Former U.S. National Security Adviser Joyhn Bolton told CNN that, The Trump administration has made a “major mistake” by not working with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado after capturing President Nicolás Maduro, “The Venezuelan people, who voted overwhelmingly for the surrogate candidate that was put in for Machado (Edmundo González Urrutia), are wondering: ‘Does the United States not trust or not trust the opposition?’,” he said.

Working with the remnants of the Maduro regime, rather than using the opposition to try and take over the government, is “a major turning point and a major mistake,” he said. “Why are we apparently prepared to engage with somebody we’ve sanctioned before to give an illegitimate regime legitimacy?” he asked, referring to acting President Delcy Rodríguez.

Responding to the Trump administration’s claims that installing Machado as president would be chaotic, as she doesn’t have enough support, Bolton said that the US should have been working with the opposition before its attack on Venezuela.

“They didn’t have to tell them the raid was coming, but they should have been working with the opposition as the Trump administration did in 2018 and 2019, with Juan Guaido, to try and fragment Maduro’s regime, to try and find people inside who would be prepared to defect to the opposition, including military leaders, so that people could have been granted amnesty,” Bolton said.

Al Jazeera said, it was the riskiest and most high-profile military operation sanctioned by Washington since the U.S. Navy’s SEAL team killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a safe house in Pakistan’s Abbottabad in 2011. After months of escalation and threats over Maduro’s alleged involvement in shipping drugs to the U.S., the Trump administration had increased pressure on Caracas with a military build-up in the Caribbean and a series of deadly missile attacks on alleged drug-running boats that had killed more than 100 people and whose legality has been heavily questioned by the United Nations and legal experts.

They told, the U.S. had also previously offered a $50m reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest. But while the military was conducting operations in the Caribbean, U.S. intelligence had been gathering information about Maduro, his eating habits, and special forces covertly rehearsed a plan to remove him from power forcibly.

Many world leaders and international law experts have said the raid violated the U.N. Charter and Venezuela’s sovereignty, while others have expressed support for the operation. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called the strike a dangerous precedent, urged compliance with international law, and scheduled a Security Council meeting for January 5. Consistent with U.S. domestic law, the Trump administration did not provide advance notice to the US Congress about the operation.

U.S. President Donald Trump has stated that the United States will run Venezuela until the transfer of power takes place, and that American companies will participate in Venezuela’s oil industry. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has stated that Venezuela will never become a colony of any country. The Maduro-led government remains in place.