Trump says Venezuelan President Maduro has been captured in a ‘large scale strike’ conducted by the United States

The United States has carried out a “large scale strike” on Venezuela, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and flying them out of the country, President Donald Trump said in a social media post early Saturday morning.

The announcement came hours after the Latin American country’s capital, Caracas, was rocked by a series of explosions. The government said military facilities and airport areas were hit.

Videos recorded by residents showed at least six enormous blasts with plumes of black smoke rising over the explosions around Caracas, shortly before 2 a.m. local time. Power outages were reported.

Explosions were heard and smoke could be seen rising in multiple locations across Caracas in the early morning, including at key military facilities, and aircraft were seen flying over the Venezuelan capital.

The Venezuelan government accused the U.S. of carrying out “severe military aggression” in Caracas and in the Venezuelan states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira, according to an official government statement posted on social media by the country’s Foreign Ministry.

The Venezuelan government had declared a state of emergency, according to the statement, adding that “the entire country must mobilize to defeat this imperialist aggression.”

There was no immediate comment on the strikes from the Pentagon or U.S. Southern Command, which both referred queries to the White House. Loud explosions jolted neighborhoods near the Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base in the eastern Caracas community of La Carlota, residents said, with smoke rising from one of the air base’s hangars.

One woman watching from her apartment with a clear view of the base said the detonations were “deafening.” Residents in several parts of the city, including near La Carlota, reported experiencing power outages.

The U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, from which the Venezuela Affairs Unit operates, said it was aware of reports of explosions in and around Caracas and warned US citizens not to travel to Venezuela.

It urged any US citizens there to shelter in place. “The US government has no ability to provide emergency services to US citizens in Venezuela,” it said. The State Department withdrew all diplomatic personnel from Caracas in 2019.

More updates will follow as more details emerge. But it appears that when you are the World Hegemon like the United States is, you can just do things.