Caracas (Venezuela): The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early on Saturday and said its President had been captured and flown out of the country after months of intense pressure on Nicolas Maduro's government — an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Donald Trump on social media hours after the attack. The legal authority for the strike — and whether Trump consulted Congress beforehand —was not immediately clear.The stunning, lightning-fast American military action, which plucked a nation's sitting leader from office, echoed the US invasion of Panama that led to the surrender and seizure of its leader, Manuel Antonio Noriega, in 1990 — exactly 36 years ago on Saturday.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, would face charges after an indictment in New York. 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.” Maduro was indicted in 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges, but it was not previously known that his wife had been.

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