 "Picture of fire at Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela's largest military complex, after a series of explosions in Caracas on January 3, 2026. Loud explosions, accompanied by sounds resembling aircraft flyovers, were heard in Caracas around 2:00 am (0600 GMT) on January 3, an AFP journalist reported. The explosions come as US President Donald Trump, who has deployed a navy task force to the Caribbean, raised the possibility of ground strikes against Venezuela. (Photo by Luis JAIMES / AFP)")
At least 40 people were killed in the United States’ attack in Venezuela on Saturday, which led to the capture of the Latin American nation’s President Nicolas Maduro . A senior Venezuelan official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The New York Times what went down on the fateful night.
The revelation of the death toll came shortly after Trump told Fox News that no American troops had been killed during the operation. However, he suggested that some service members had been injured during the attack. Meanwhile, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said later in the day at a news conference in Mar-a-Lago with Trump that the US helicopters moving to extract President Nicolás Maduro and his wife had come under fire.
He noted that one helicopter had been hit but still “remained flyable,” and that all US aircraft “came home.” Details started to circulate soon after the attack. Venezuelan outlets started to report the death of a Venezuelan civilian in Catia La Mar, a low-income coastal area just west of the Caracas airport.
It was the same location where an airstrike hit a three-story civilian apartment complex and knocked out an exterior wall early Saturday. The strikes also killed 80-year-old Rosa González, he family confirmed the news and a second person was also injured.
US strikes wreak havoc
Meanwhile, in the afternoon, a government investigator was present in the area of the strike, interviewing witnesses and picking up projectiles. The Saturday strikes left the interior of an apartment exposed to the public.
One neighbour, a 70-year-old man named Jorge, who declined to give his last name, told NYT that he lost everything in the airstrikes. In the midst of this, a plane carrying the country’s ‘captured’ President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores , arrived in New York. The plane landed just hours after an overnight US military attack in the Latin American nation’s capital that was hailed by Trump.
While confirming the news of the operation, Trump lauded the strikes and Maduro’s capture as “an assault like people have not seen since World War II” and vowed the US would run the leaderless country. While speaking at a press conference in Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, Trump provided few details after ousting Maduro in an audacious military attack.
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View AllHe maintained that the United States would be in control of Venezuela until there was an orderly transition of power. It is pertinent to note that Maduro was in the US custody hours after being seized from his Caracas compound in a US raid, landed at Stewart Air National Guard Base after 4.30 pm (local time) in a white Boeing 757.