The message was published on his Truth Social profile. “The United States of America has successfully carried out a large-scale attack against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolás Maduro, who was, together with his wife, captured and taken out of the country.
US President Donald Trump says the US has conducted “large-scale attacks against Venezuela” and has “captured its leader, President Nicolás Maduro”, along with his wife. The message was published on his Truth Social profile. “The United States of America has successfully carried out a large-scale attack against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolás Maduro, who was, together with his wife, captured and taken out of the country. This operation was conducted in collaboration with US law enforcement agencies. Further details will follow. A press conference will be held today at 11.00 in Mar-a-Lago.
The night between January 2nd and 3rd marks a watershed in the Venezuelan crisis. Caracas was shaken by a sequence of violent explosions, accompanied by blackouts, widespread panic and the low-level overflight of American military planes and helicopters. The explosions, heard in several areas of the city just before two in the morning, also hit highly sensitive areas such as the Fort Tiunathe heart of the military apparatus, and the area of La Carlotain the eastern part of the capital. Scenes that have brought to the surface, in a brutal way, a truth that the regime has been trying to hide for years: the control of the country by the Chavista power is increasingly fragile. The return to the scene of also weighs on the bottom of this escalation Donald Trumpwho in the previous weeks had repeatedly indicated Venezuela as one direct threat to the security of the United Statesopenly accusing Nicolás Maduro to fuel drug trafficking and encourage the entry of criminals into American territory. Trump he has never hidden that he considers the Venezuelan regime a hostile outpost on the continentespecially for its ties to Tehran and for tolerance towards terrorist and criminal networks. The explosions in Caracas therefore arrive in a climate already full of warnings and red lines drawn publicly by Washingtonreinforcing the idea that the Venezuelan match has entered a phase of direct confrontation, in which Maduro’s room for maneuver has been drastically reduced.
The response of the Caracas government was immediate and predictable. State of emergency, general mobilization, rhetoric of the “imperialist attack” and call for armed resistance. According to the official version, not only Caracas but also the States of Miranda, Aragua And La Guaira they would have been hit. But beyond the external accusations, the night of the explosions above all tells of the internal failure of a system of power that now survives only through permanent emergency. The president Nicolás Maduro governs an exhausted country: devastated economy, worthless currency, collapsed public services, millions of citizens who have fled abroad. The real consensus has long since evaporated and what remains of the regime is based on a combination of repression, military control and increasingly contentious international alliances. Precisely these alliances represent one of the key elements for understanding Venezuela’s growing isolation and the escalation of tension that is now exploding in the capital. In recent years Maduro it transformed Venezuela into a strategic platform for actors hostile to the West, opening the door to the entrenchment of structures linked to Iran and its security apparatus. THE Pasdaranthe elite corps of Islamic Republicthey found in Caracas un political interlocutor willing to offer diplomatic, logistical and operational cover in exchange for technological and military support. A relationship that goes far beyond formal cooperation and which has resulted in opaque exchanges, the presence of specialized personnel, the transfer of know-how and the use of Venezuelan territory as a strategic rear area.
Tolerance, if not indirect support, also fits into this context. to networks connected to Iranian proxies in Latin America. Over the years, Venezuela has become a favorable environment for financing, coverage and movement of men linked to organizations such as Hezbollah, historically allies of Tehran. An ecosystem which, due to ideological affinity and strategic convergence, ends up also touching theuniverse of groups such as Hamas, beneficiaries of Iranian support in other theaters. Caracas is not a Middle Eastern battlefield, but has become a piece of that same global architecture of challenge to the international order. This choice came at an enormous cost. Diplomatic isolation, sanctions, loss of credibility and growing perception of Venezuela as a hostile and unstable state. Maduro has sacrificed the future of the country in order to guarantee his personal political survival, linking himself to powers and organizations that bring neither development nor stability, but only further conflict. The explosions in Caracas are also a reflection of this isolation: when a regime stops being perceived as a political interlocutor and becomes a security problem, the crisis enters a new and more dangerous phase.
At a regional level, the alarm was raised immediately. The Colombian president Gustavo Petro he spoke openly about bombings and asked for the intervention of multilateral bodies. It is the sign that the Venezuela dossier it is no longer an internal issue, but a factor of continental instability. Militarized borders, out-of-control migratory flows, risk of escalation: everything converges towards a critical point. But above all it converges towards a political conclusion. A government that loses control of its capital, that responds to explosions with proclamations and a state of emergency, that needs radical external allies to stay on its feet, is a government that has reached the end of its cycle. The revolutionary narrative is worn out, the promise of national sovereignty emptied, the state apparatus reduced to an instrument of survival for a narrow elite. The Caracas explosions are not just a military episode. They are the symbol of a power that crumbles from within. Nicolás Maduro’s time is over: not because his opponents say so, but because the facts, the rubble, demonstrate it the fear in the streets of the capital and the growing isolation of a regime that has lost all connection with the future of its country.
