“The United States is prepared to deploy ground troops if necessary,” he declared.

Nicolas Maduro and his spouse were en route to New York, facing charges related to narcotics and terrorism.

Maria Corina Machado, an opposition leader supported by the US and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate from last year, took to social media exclaiming, “The time for liberation has come,” in response to the incident.

In his speech, Trump emphasized that the US commitment is expected to be a long-term engagement.

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China, a backer of Maduro’s hard-left regime, said it “strongly condemns” the US attack, while France warned that a solution for troubled Venezuela cannot “be imposed from outside.”

Blackout and bombing

Caracas residents woke to explosions and the whir of military helicopters around 2am (local time). Airstrikes hit a major military base and an airbase, among other sites, for nearly an hour, journalists from the Agence France-Presse said.

Within hours of the operation, Caracas had fallen eerily quiet, with police stationed outside public buildings and a smell of smoke drifting through the streets.

Shifting justifications

Maduro — in power since 2013 after taking over from leftist mentor Hugo Chavez — long accused Trump of seeking regime change in order to control Venezuela’s huge oil reserves.