Inside the U.S. Operation to Oust Venezuela’s President

What It Covers

The Trump administration executed Operation Absolute Resolve, deploying Delta Force commandos and 150 aircraft to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas, bringing him to face drug trafficking charges in New York.

Key Questions Answered

• •Military Planning Timeline: CIA operatives infiltrated Venezuela in August to establish Maduro's daily patterns, recruited an inside informant for real-time location tracking, and Delta Force built replica structures for mission rehearsal over six months before execution.
• •Operation Scale and Execution: The mission launched from 20 bases using 150 aircraft, disabled Venezuelan air defenses, inserted commandos via helicopter at 2:01 AM Caracas time, and completed extraction in two hours twenty minutes with Maduro aboard USS Iwo Jima.
• •Post-Capture Governance Strategy: Trump announced the US will directly run Venezuela through cabinet members Hegseth and Rubio, prioritize rebuilding oil infrastructure funded by American companies, and maintain military presence as leverage over interim Venezuelan leadership compliance.
• •Legal Justification Framework: The administration frames the operation as criminal law enforcement executing an existing drug trafficking indictment rather than an act of war, positioning military forces as supporting Justice Department arrest operations to avoid international law violations.