The United States has captured Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and removed them from the country in an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by US President Donald Trump.
Trump said the US carried out a "large-scale strike against Venezuela" just before 2am on Saturday (6pm AEDT), a dramatic escalation after months of increasing pressure on the South American leader.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, would face charges after an indictment in New York, vowing that the couple would "soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts".
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Venezuelan authorities said they did not know of Maduro's whereabouts and the vice president demanded "proof of life".
Multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through the capital Caracas in the stunning American military action to pluck a nation's sitting leader from office, echoing the US invasion of Panama that led to the surrender and seizure of its leader, Manuel Antonio Noriega, in 1990 — exactly 36 years ago Saturday.
"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," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"This operation was done in conjunction with US Law Enforcement. Details to follow." He added that there would be a news conference at Mar-a-Lago at 11am on Saturday (3am on Sunday AEDT).
Maduro's government immediately accused the US of an "imperialist attack" and urged citizens to take to the streets.
It was not immediately clear who was running the country, and Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said the government did not know the whereabouts of Maduro and Flores.
Under Venezuelan law, Rodríguez would be expected to take power. There was no confirmation that that had happened, though she did issue a statement saying: "We demand proof of life."
The legal implications of the strike under US law were not immediately clear.
Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on "narco-terrorism" conspiracy charges, but it was not previously known that his wife had been.
It wasn't clear if Bondi was referring to a new indictment when she said the pair would face justice. The details of the allegations against Flores were not immediately known.
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'This is horrible'
There had been at least seven explosions in the US strike, which sent people rushing into the streets.
It was not clear how many people had been injured during the operation that lasted about 30 minutes.
"One [explosion] was so strong, my window was shaking after it," CNN correspondent Osmary Hernandez said.
Smoke could be seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas. Another military installation in the capital was without power.
"The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes in the distance," said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling.
She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party.
"We felt like the air was hitting us."
Venezuela's government has called on its supporters to take to the streets.
"People to the streets!" the government said in a statement.
"The Bolivarian government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilisation plans and repudiate this imperialist attack."
The statement added that Maduro had "ordered all national defence plans to be implemented" and declared "a state of external disturbance".
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Latest in US pressure building on Maduro
The blasts come as the US military has been targeting, in recent days, alleged drug-smuggling boats. On Friday, Venezuela said it was open to negotiating an agreement with the US to combat drug trafficking.
Maduro also said in a pre-taped interview aired on Thursday that the US wants to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through the monthslong pressure campaign that began with a massive military deployment to the Caribbean Sea in August.
Maduro 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 on boats in September.
Trump for months had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land. The US has also 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 was 35 and the number of people killed was at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.
They followed a major buildup 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.
– Reported with Associated Press and CNN
