The well-planned surgical raid Saturday morning concluded with elite Delta Force soldiers snatching Nicolas Maduro from his safe house at a military compound in Caracas.
The attack, which appeared to catch Venezuelan security forces completely by surprise, reportedly lasted about 30 minutes to knock out air defenses and hit military targets. The snatch-and-grab operation, performed by Delta Force rappelling from helicopters hovering over a rooftop, took only about three minutes.
Bob Maginnis, a national defense analyst and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, told AFN the military operation did what it was supposed to do.
“It wasn't flawless,” Maginnis observed, “but it was certainly a wonderfully-executed, large-scale operation.”
Maginnis said he presumed Delta Force practiced the operation for weeks, if not months, and news reports indeed said the elite soldiers practiced the extraction with a mock-up of the safe house. A CIA team was also on the ground in the area since August.
Humberto Fontova, a Cuban-American and expert on Latin America, told AFN he was drawn to reports Maduro’s entire security detail was Cubans.
“His entire bodyguard, and his entire intelligence services, were actually set up by Cuban personnel,” Fontova pointed out. “Well, supposedly we did away with 32 of them during that surgical strike."
Fontova, who fled Cuba’s communist regime as a child, said Maduro is a murderous dictator, and an illegitimate president, whose allies around the world are China, Russia, and Iran.
“His re-election wasn't even recognized by the European Union, and the European Union is notoriously contrary to anything the U.S. does,” Fontova stated.
