CARACAS, Venezuela — The US attacked Venezuela and deposed its long-serving autocratic President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, President Donald Trump said, in Washington’s most direct intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama.

“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 said in a Truth Social post.

Ahead of the overnight strikes, the US had accused Maduro of running a “narco-state” and rigging Venezuela’s 2024 election, which the opposition said it won overwhelmingly.

The Venezuelan leader, a 63-year-old former bus driver handpicked by the dying Hugo Chavez to succeed him in 2013, had denied those claims and said Washington was intent on taking control of his nation’s oil reserves, the largest in the world.

The US has not made such a direct intervention in Latin America since the invasion of Panama 37 years ago to depose military leader Manuel Noriega over similar allegations.

Multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas, the capital, as Maduro’s government immediately accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations. The Venezuelan government called it an “imperialist attack” and urged citizens to take to the streets.

It was not immediately clear who was running the country. Trump announced the developments on Truth Social shortly after 4:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Under Venezuelan law, the vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, would take power.

There was no confirmation that had happened, though she did issue a statement after the strike.

“We do not know the whereabouts of President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores,” Rodriguez said. “We demand proof of life.”

STATEMENT FROM PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP pic.twitter.com/nHDqtsqRFh

— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 3, 2026

According to the country’s ruling party leader, Nahum Fernández, Maduro and his wife were at their home within the Fuerte Tiuna military installation when they were captured.

“That’s where they bombed,” he said. “And, there, they carried out what we could call a kidnapping of the president and the first lady of the country.”

Trump corroborated this account in a telephone interview with Fox News later Saturday, saying that Maduro was captured from a highly guarded “fortress.”

The US president added that the troops involved in the operation suffered a few injuries and no deaths.

“I mean, I watched it, literally, like I was watching a television show. And if you would have seen the speed, the violence,” Trump said, adding that the daring raid by US special forces shows that Washington is “not going to be pushed around.”

Asked about US involvement in Venezuela’s affairs........

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