WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are in U.S. custody and aboard the USS Iwo Jima, an amphibious warship en route to New York to face prosecution.
"They're on a ship," Trump told Fox News in a phone interview. "They'll be heading into New York."
Trump said the two were taken by helicopter following a U.S. military raid and transferred to the warship, which is operating in the Caribbean.
Trump said he watched the complex capture of Maduro in real-time from a room in his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, alongside military generals.
"I watched it literally like I was watching a television show," Trump said.
He added that he believed no U.S. personnel were killed during the operation, though some were injured, and a helicopter was hit.
"I think we had nobody killed," he told Fox News, adding that all aircraft returned safely.
Asked about Washington's next steps in Venezuela, Trump said his administration was "making that decision now" and would be "very much involved."
According to CNN, citing multiple sources familiar with the operation, U.S. forces launched a nighttime raid in Venezuela, catching Maduro and his wife while they were asleep. One source said the couple was "dragged from their bedroom" during the operation.
The Associated Press reported that the arrest took place at a residence inside a military compound.
The U.S. Army's Delta Force, an elite special forces responsible for killing former Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, carried out the operation to capture Maduro, multiple U.S. media outlets reported.
A CNN report, citing sources, said that the Trump administration began preparing in mid-December for the secretive operation to strike Venezuela and capture Maduro.
Trump told Fox News that he had spoken directly with Maduro about a week earlier and had offered the Venezuelan leader an opportunity to step down peacefully.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said earlier that Maduro will "soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts" after he was captured and flown out of the oil-rich South American nation.
"Nicolas Maduro has been charged with Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States," Bondi wrote on social media platform X.
For months, the United States has maintained a significant military presence in the Caribbean, much of it off Venezuela's coast, purportedly to combat drug trafficking -- a claim Venezuela has denounced as an attempt to bring about regime change in Caracas. ■