Caracas, Jan 4 (AP) Hours after an audacious military operation that plucked leader Nicolás Maduro from power and removed him from the country, President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States would run Venezuela at least temporarily and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.

The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on the South American nation and its autocratic leader and months of secret planning resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Speaking to reporters hours after Maduro's capture, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country's oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries.

Venezuela's vice president demanded in a speech that the US free Maduro and called him the country's rightful leader.

Maduro and his wife, seized overnight from their home on a military base, were aboard a US warship on their way to New York to face prosecution for a Justice Department indictment accusing them of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.

The legal authority for the operation was not immediately clear, though the Trump administration described it — and earlier deadly strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea — as necessary to stem the flow of dangerous drugs.

Trump also claimed the US government would help run the country and was already doing so, though there were no immediate signs of that. Venezuelan state TV continued to air pro-Maduro propaganda, broadcasting live images of supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.

“We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference where he boasted that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.” Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges, but the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, that painted the regime as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fuelled by a drug trafficking operation that flooded the US with cocaine. The US government does not recognise Maduro as the country's leader.

Trump posted a photo on social media showing Maduro wearing a sweatsuit and a blindfold on board the USS Iwo Jima.

Early morning attack ---------------------- The operation followed a monthslong Trump administration effort to push the Venezuelan leader, including a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America and attacks on boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean accused of carrying drugs.

Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US began strikes in September.

Maduro had decried prior military operations as a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power.

Taking place 36 years to the day after the 1990 US invasion of Panama that led to the surrender and seizure of leader Manuel Antonio Noriega, the Venezuela operation unfolded under the cover of darkness early Saturday as Trump said the US turned off “almost all of the lights" in the capital city of Caracas while forces moved in to extract Maduro and his wife.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said US forces had rehearsed their manoeuvres for months, learning everything about Maduro — where he was and what he ate, as well as details of his pets and his clothes.

“We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again,” Caine said. “Not to get it right, but to ensure we cannot get it wrong.” Early Saturday, multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas. Maduro's government accused the US of attacking civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets.

The attack lasted less than 30 minutes and the explosions — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report what they saw and heard.

Some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed, said Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, without giving a number. Trump said some US forces were injured but none were killed.

Video obtained from Caracas and an unidentified coastal city showed tracers and smoke clouding the landscape as repeated muted explosions illuminated the night sky. Other footage showed cars passing on a highway as blasts illuminated the hills behind them. The videos were verified by The Associated Press.

Smoke was seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without electricity.

Under Venezuelan law, Rodríguez would take over from Maduro. But Rodriguez made clear during a Saturday appearance on state television that she did not plan to assume power. She called for Maduro's release and pronounced him president.

“There is only one president in Venezuela, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros," she said.

Some streets in Caracas fill up --------------------------------- Venezuela's ruling party has held power since 1999, when Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chávez, took office, promising to uplift poor people and later to implement a self-described socialist revolution.

Maduro took over when Chávez died in 2013. His 2018 reelection was widely considered a sham because the main opposition parties were banned from participating.

During the 2024 election, electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared him the winner hours after polls closed, but the opposition gathered overwhelming evidence that he lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

In a demonstration of how polarizing a figure Maduro is, people variously took to the streets to protest his capture and celebrate it.

At a protest in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas Mayor Carmen Meléndez joined a crowd demanding Maduro's return.

“Maduro, hold on, the people are rising up!” the crowd chanted. “We are here Nicolás Maduro. If you can hear us, we are here!” Earlier, armed people and uniformed members of a civilian militia took to the streets of a Caracas neighbourhood long considered a stronghold of the ruling party.

In other parts of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack, as residents absorbed events. Some areas remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.

“How do I feel? Scared, like everyone,” said Caracas resident Noris Prada, who sat on an empty avenue looking down at his phone. “Venezuelans woke up scared, many families couldn't sleep.” In the Chilean capital of Santiago, people waved Venezuelan flags and banged pots and pans as vehicles passed by honking at them.

In Doral, Florida, home to the largest Venezuelan community in the US, people wrapped themselves in Venezuelan flags, ate fried snacks and cheered as music played. At one point, the crowd chanted “Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!” Questions of legality ---------------------- Some legal experts raised immediate concerns about the operation's legality.

Lawmakers from both political parties in Congress have raised reservations and flat-out objections to the US attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling near the Venezuelan coast. Congress has not specifically approved an authorisation for the use of military force for such operations in the region.

Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he had seen no evidence that would justify Trump striking Venezuela without approval from Congress and demanded an immediate briefing by the administration on "its plan to ensure stability in the region and its legal justification for this decision.” Congressional leaders were not notified by the Trump administration about the military action until early Saturday morning, after it was already underway, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio said was necessary to preserve the operation's integrity.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, called it a “decisive and justified operation that will protect American lives" and said the Trump administration was working to schedule briefings. (AP) GSP