Washington / Caracas, Jan 4 . The US military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was the culmination of months of covert intelligence work and one of the most complex American raids in more than a decade, US officials said.
A pre-dawn raid carried out Saturday by elite “US Army Delta Force” commandos resulted in the capture of Maduro, marking the “riskiest American military operation” of its kind since US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s Abbottabad in 2011.
The operation followed months of clandestine intelligence-gathering by the Central Intelligence Agency, which began last August when a covert team of CIA officers entered Venezuela to track Maduro, whom the Trump administration had designated a narco-terrorist.
Operating without diplomatic cover due to the closure of the US embassy, the CIA team moved undetected throughout Caracas for months. Using a combination of human intelligence from a source close to Maduro, extensive surveillance, and stealth drones operating secretly overhead, the agency compiled a detailed profile of the Venezuelan leader’s daily routines and movements.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the intelligence allowed the United States to track Maduro with unusual precision.
He said at a news conference that the intelligence was unusually comprehensive. “We knew where he moved, what he ate, and even what pets he kept,” Caine said, underscoring the depth of the operation.
That intelligence laid the groundwork for Operation Absolute Resolve. Caine described it as “an audacious operation that only the United States could do,” stressing that it integrated air, ground, maritime, space, and intelligence capabilities on a scale rarely seen.
The intelligence proved critical to what U.S. officials described as a tactically precise and swiftly executed military raid that extracted Maduro from Venezuela without the loss of American life. President Donald Trump hailed the operation as a major success, though it immediately raised significant legal and geopolitical questions.
“The Force included F-22s, F-35s, F-18s, EA-18s, E-2s, B-1 bombers, and other support aircraft, as well as numerous remotely piloted drones,” he said.
In preparation, Delta Force units rehearsed the extraction inside a full-scale replica of Maduro’s compound constructed by Joint Special Operations Command in Kentucky. The military waited days for favorable weather and confirmation that Maduro was at a known location, as he had been rotating among several secure sites to avoid detection.
In the days leading up to the raid, the US surged aircraft, drones, electronic warfare assets, and special operations forces into the region. The mission, named Operation Absolute Resolve, was framed by the administration as a strike against international drug trafficking. However, Venezuela is not considered one of the world’s primary drug-producing or transit countries, and US officials had previously told Congress that regime change was not the objective.
President Donald Trump authorised the mission as early as Dec. 25 but left the precise timing to Pentagon planners. Once conditions aligned, Trump gave final approval late Friday night while at Mar-a-Lago.
According to Caine, the assault phase began in the early hours of Saturday. “We arrived at Maduro’s compound at 1:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, or 2:01 a.m. Caracas local time, and the apprehension force descended into Maduro’s compound and moved with speed, precision, and discipline towards their objective and isolated the area to ensure the safety and security of the ground force,” Caine said.
He added that the operation relied on the combined efforts of soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians working alongside intelligence agencies and law enforcement partners. “We watched, we waited, we prepared, we remained patient and professional,” he said, noting that the mission drew on decades of experience in complex joint operations and counter-terrorism efforts.
Intelligence support from agencies including the CIA, NSA, and NGA was described as critical to the success of the raid.
At the core of the mission was an exceptionally precise extraction plan. “An extraction so precise it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western Hemisphere in close coordination, all coming together in time and place to layer effects for a single purpose,” Caine said. That purpose was “to get an interdiction force into downtown Caracas while maintaining the element of tactical surprise.”
He warned that failure by any single component “would have endangered the entire operation”.
Within minutes of entering the compound, Delta Force operators secured Maduro and his wife and evacuated them from the country. US officials said the mission resulted in no American fatalities, though several personnel were injured. Venezuelan authorities reported casualties from broader strikes carried out during the operation.
Trump hailed the outcome as a decisive success but acknowledged the risks involved. While the administration has justified Operation Absolute Resolve as a counter-narcotics action, the operation has raised significant legal and geopolitical questions, particularly after Trump said American officials would oversee Venezuela during a transition period and rebuild its oil infrastructure.
US officials described the raid as tactically flawless.
Despite those assurances, Trump said on Saturday that American officials were now “in charge” of Venezuela and announced plans for the United States to rebuild the country’s oil infrastructure, signaling a deeper level of involvement than previously acknowledged.
In the weeks leading up to the raid, Delta Force commandos rehearsed the extraction repeatedly inside a full-scale replica of Maduro’s compound built by the Joint Special Operations Command at a facility in Kentucky. Troops practiced breaching reinforced doors and executing the mission under increasingly compressed timelines.
. . VAN
