Inside Operation Absolute Resolve: How US forces captured Venezuela’s Maduro — after months of secret planning

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“I watched it literally like I was watching a television show — it was an amazing thing.”

The Delta Force commandos were flown in by the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment — known as the Night Stalkers — as helicopters pushed toward the compound under fire.

The Night Stalkers flew modified MH-60 and MH-47 helicopters, executing low-level nighttime insertions as U.S. aircraft first dismantled Venezuela’s air defenses to clear the path into Caracas.

Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro in military uniform and a camouflage cap with the Venezuelan coat of arms.
Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores “gave up” without a firefight and were taken into custody by the Department of Justice during the early-morning raid, officials said.REUTERS

“People were wondering, do we get them by surprise?” Trump added. “Sort of surprised, but they were waiting for something. It was a lot of opposition. There was a lot of gunfire.”

At a late morning press conference at Mar-a-Lago General, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said months of intelligence gathering produced critical details about Maduro, enabling US forces to find him “and understand how he moved, where he lived, where he traveled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets.”

Follow The Post’s live coverage of US strikes on Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro

The C.I.A. collected intelligence from a fleet of stealth drones and a human source who could get close to Mr. Maduro and monitor his movements, according to people briefed on the matter.

The intelligence campaign began as early as August, combining human sources with aerial surveillance, while the mission itself involved months of “pinpoint” planning and rehearsal.

Ahead of the operation, US forces trained on a mock-up of Maduro’s compound.

“They actually built a house which was identical to the one they went into with all the safes and all the steel all over the place,” Trump told “Fox & Friends.”

Flares falling on Higuerote airbase in Venezuela, causing a large explosion and fire.
American forces dismantled Venezuelan air defenses before helicopters pushed into Caracas to extract Maduro and his wife, according to US military officials.Validated User Content

Trump said the raid on Caracas — dubbed Operation Absolute Resolve — was ordered at 10:46 p.m. Friday after weather briefly cleared, setting off a tightly choreographed mission that unfolded over roughly two hours and 20 minutes.

“At my direction, the United States Armed Forces conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela,” Trump said.

“Overwhelming American military power, air, land and sea, was used to launch a spectacular assault, and it was an assault like people have not seen since World War II,” he added.

Smoke rising from a dock at La Guaira port in Venezuela.
US helicopters came under fire during the extraction phase of the mission but did not encounter any American fatalities, military leaders said.AP

Trump later said Maduro was holed up inside a “fortress”-like house with steel doors and a reinforced safe space, but never made it inside.

“He was trying to get into it, but he got bum rushed so fast that he didn’t get into that area,” Trump said, adding U.S. forces were prepared with blowtorches to cut through the steel if needed. Continue reading…

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