Posted on 01/04/2026 5:38:22 AM PST by DFG
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro raced to close the 6ins-thick steel door of a safe room seconds before he and wife Cilia were snatched by US Special Forces, it emerged on Saturday.
The full details of one of the most audacious military raids in modern history were revealed by Donald Trump and his closest advisers who watched the daring two-hour 28-minute operation unfold on screens inside a secure room at Mar-a-Lago, the US President's Florida estate.
After weeks of meticulous planning and waiting for the weather to be 'perfect', Mr Trump gave the go-ahead for Operation Absolute Resolve at 10.46pm Eastern Standard Time on Friday night (11.46pm in Venezuela, 3.46am on Saturday in the UK) with the words: 'Good luck and God speed.'
Maduro was 'heavily guarded' in a bunker on a military base in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, that was 'like a fortress', Mr Trump said.
'It had what they call a safe space where it's solid steel all around. He didn't get that space closed. He was trying to get into it, but got bum-rushed so fast that he didn't get into it.
'It was a very thick door, a very heavy door. But he was unable to get to that door. He made it to the door but he was unable to close it.' Soldiers from Delta Force – the US Army's elite special operations unit – were equipped with blow torches to cut through the steel door in case Mr Maduro managed to lock himself in.
Mr Trump said: 'He wasn't able to shut the door because our guys were so fast.
'Did we get him by surprise? Sort of surprise, but they were waiting for something. It was a lot of opposition. There was a lot of gunfire.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
For the demonrats cue the sad trombone...
“Womp, womp waaa”
CC
Look at all the fun stuff those guys get to do.
Would have been better to just weld the door shut bring on a D-9 and bury it.
Part of me likes to imagine Maduro getting inside his safe room, then pissing his pants when he sees the torches cutting through the door.
Happy though that he didn’t mange to shut the door and the whole thing took 2 1/2 hours. Compare that to Noriega’s capture, which took two weeks.
Our military kicks butt!
As to the drug cartels? We will kill then all if we have to, no matter where they are.
God Bless and Protect President Trump.
Bellyaching that they weren't briefed beforehand.
That's two successful operations now. It's got to be killing the "unnamed sources" that they couldn't leak plans to the media.
I would like to see them start seeding congress with false information to see where it ends up and how fast.
CC
Blow torches will not cut through steel.
Cutting torches cut through steel
I am wondering about that too… if she was even in the same part of the building.
Maduro probably shouldn’t have bought the Saferoom from Temu.
Figure of speech. I’m going to bet it wasn’t cutting torches, either, but were oxygen lances. They use a consumable rod, battery ignition and high pressure. They don’t do a neat job like a cutting torch does, but are wicked, and can cut through just about anything, including concrete reinforced steel.
I will agree with your assessment.
Blow torch is not a figure of speech but real ignorance perpetrated by a stylebook.
Everyone is talking too much,imho.
If mossad did this there would be no leaking about an insider, stealth drones, steel doors and blowtorches.
When it was over they might even deny they did it.
the UK gleefully sharing diagrams, etc.
Actually a what we used to refer to as a blow torch was a gasoline fueled, hand held manually pumped up torch that usually held about a quart of gasoline, and was used for some pipe thawing, and paint stripping purposes. I haven’t seen one in years, though, I’ll have to research and see if they still make them. They were a real thing, though.
Bkmk
“Our military kicks butt!”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Indeed.
What the US military did was perfection.
Actually, you only see such success in movies normally. It can never happen in reality. But, here we are!
Truly well done.
The other good part of this successful operation is that it contrasts so well with Putin’s completely botched “Special Operation”. Russia’s war: four years, and no end in sight against a Ukraine which is 30 times smaller than Russia!
Russia keeps poking the Ukrainian wolf... but to no avail.
Maduro sure went down a lot quicker than Noriega did. Maduro should have stuck to driving buses. The boy was in over his head. Rangers Lead The Way!
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