President Trump: US to 'run Venezuela until safe transition of power'
They've captured the country's leader, Nicolas Maduro
Donald Trump says the US is going to run Venezuela - until there can be a safe transition of power.
The US captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and flew him out of the country in a military operation earlier today
It was the culmination of months of escalating Trump administration pressure on the oil-rich South American nation.
Mr Maduro and his wife, taken overnight from their home on a military base, were aboard a US warship on their way to New York, where they were to face criminal charges.
President Donald Trump said the US planned to run Venezuela until a transition of power can take place.
He claimed the American presence was already in place, though there were no immediate signs that the US was running the country.
"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition," Mr Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference where he boasted that this "extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives".
Venezuelan state TV broadcast live images of small groups of Maduro supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.
The legal authority for the attack, which echoed the 1990 US invasion of Panama that led to the surrender and seizure of leader Manuel Antonio Noriega, was not immediately clear.
The US government does not recognise Mr Maduro, who last appeared on state television on Friday while meeting with a delegation of Chinese officials in Caracas.
Mr Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on "narco-terrorism" conspiracy charges, but the US justice department released a new indictment on Saturday of Mr Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, accusing them of a role in narco-terrorism conspiracy.
US attorney general Pam Bondi vowed in a social media post that the couple would "soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts".
Mr Maduro's government accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations, calling it an "imperialist attack" and urging citizens to take to the streets.