Amphib USS Iwo Jima Plays Key Role in Extraction of Nicolas Maduro
A U.S. Navy amphib played a key role in the capture and removal of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were extracted from Caracas by a massive American task force overnight Friday.
About 150 American drones, fighters, bombers and helicopters participated in the rapidfire strike. The aerial elements neutralized Venezuelan air defenses, paving the way for helicopter-borne commandos of the Army's Delta Force to fly directly to a Venezuelan military base. Maduro and his wife were captured from their rooms on the base, reportedly before they could reach a safe room. U.S. federal police personnel were on hand to effect an arrest.
For the exfiltration, the strike team landed Maduro and his wife aboard USS Iwo Jima, a Wasp-class "big deck" amphib, President Donald Trump said on Saturday. From Iwo Jima, the detainees were transferred onwards to New York for processing and judicial proceedings.
USS Iwo Jima has a prominent history in U.S. expeditionary warfare. She was on scene off Iraq for Operation Enduring Freedom in April 2023, and she played a part in the little-known Western response to the Second Liberian Civil War, in support of Joint Task Force Liberia. She was also on hand for the humanitarian response in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, and the response to Hurricane Matthew in Haiti 2016. She has been operating in the Caribbean in support of the U.S. pressure campaign on Venezuela since August 2025.
For years, the Justice Department has maintained a multimillion-dollar bounty and a most-wanted listing for Maduro's capture. He stands accused of permitting Colombian smugglers to use his nation as a transit point for cocaine trafficking, partly destined for the U.S. market. For his alleged involvement, he faces charges of "narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machineguns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices against the United States."
In Maduro's absence, the administration has signaled that it is resolved to manage Venezuela for an interim period. It does not anticipate a leadership role for opposition leader and recently-selected Nobel Prize winner María Corina Machado, an outspoken ally of the Trump administration. The White House has said that it will "run" Venezuela, with day-to-day administration provided by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez.
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On Saturday, Rodriguez indicated that she did not support American intervention, saying that Venezuela "will never return to being the colony of another empire."
In a telephone interview he granted to The Atlantic on Sunday, President Donald Trump said that if Delcy Rodriguez does not cooperate, "she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro." He also affirmed that Greenland is still on his list of objectives. "We do need Greenland, absolutely," Trump told The Atlantic.
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