Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was seized by the United States Army’s secretive Delta Force unit in a daring raid on his heavily-secured compound.
CBS News reported that the ultra-elite Delta Force unit were behind the capture of Maduro and his wife Cilia in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The pair were snatched by helicopter from Caracas after their whereabouts were monitored by CIA spies, with President Donald Trump giving the order to take them two days ago.
Maduro will now face trial in the United States on drugs and weapons trafficking charges.
Further details are expected at a press conference set to be held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago country club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday morning.
Maduro’s top lieutenants have demanded ‘proof of life’ for their missing leader, suggesting they fear he may have been killed in the raid.
The country’s attorney general Tarek Saab added that ‘innocents’ had been ‘mortally-wounded’ during the US operation – but no further details were shared.
Delta Force, whose full title is the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta, is one of the United States’s most elite military units.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and wife Cilia were both seized by a US military unit in the early hours of Caracas, with Maduro now set to face drugs and gun charges in the United States
Smoke rises from La Carlota Airport in Caracas, Venezuela, after a daring dead-of-night mission by the US Army’s Delta Force unit to capture the country’s president Nicolas Maduro on drugs charges
An explosion rocks Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning during a US military operation which resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro
Its members – whose identifies remain a secret – are tasked with carrying out the most dangerous missions on behalf of the US Army.
Delta Force’s most famous operations include an October 2019 raid on the Syrian compound of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which resulted in his death.
Delta operators refer to themselves as ‘the Unit’ and are an elite counter terrorism unit.
The unit is known for taking out serious terrorist networks and targets, and works collaboratively with the CIA.
Based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the unit falls under the control of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC.)
The U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) is responsible for the unit’s personnel management and administration.
Operators are also known to provide security for US leaders during their travels to dangerous or war-affected areas, per Military.com.
A military vehicle destroyed by Saturday’s strikes in Venezuela is seen burned-out as dawn breaks in Caracas on Saturday morning
Roughly 2,000 soldiers make up Delta Force, and the unit is divided into seven squadrons, or groups, per Britannica.
Each squadron is made up of three troops: Two troops conduct assaults and the third conducts reconnaissance and sniping.
Founded in 1977 by Col. Charles Beckwith, he was inspired by the British Army’s 22nd Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment, their highly classified counter-terrorism unit.
Beckwith believed the U.S. needed an SAS equivalent because of the rise in terrorism, leading to it’s establishment.
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