President Donald Trump confirmed that America’s most elite special operations unit — Delta Force — carried out the daring overnight raid that led to the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
According to reporting from Fox News, the highly classified operation was executed by 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta, better known simply as Delta Force — the same legendary unit that captured Saddam Hussein in 2003.
According to the news outlet:
Delta Force is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the hub of U.S. Army special operations training. The unit has previously been involved in some of the most consequential U.S. military operations, including the 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein. The secretive unit also conducted numerous counterterrorism missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East, targeting senior al-Qaeda figures.
Delta Force is commanded by a senior Army officer, but the identity of the unit’s leader is also kept classified, as is the exact size of the unit.
It is unclear how many members took part in the Venezuela operation.
During the raid, U.S. Army helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the “Night Stalkers,” flew the special operations forces into Venezuela, officials said.
At least seven explosions were heard in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, and low-flying aircraft were seen over the city at about 2 a.m. local time, according to reports.
The CIA provided intelligence to the Department of War that helped guide Delta Force to Maduro and his wife, whom President Donald Trump said were apprehended during the U.S. military operation.
President Trump, speaking on FOX & Friends Weekend, praised the operation as unmatched in modern warfare.
Trump:
“Look, we have a whole different country. We have a country now that’s respected. We have a country— I built the military in my first term, and they gave a little chunk of it away. It was a lot, but it was a little chunk relative to what we built. They gave it to Afghanistan—so stupidly. It was one of the… compare this to Afghanistan, where we were a laughing stock all over the world.
We’re not a laughing stock anymore. No, we have the greatest military in the world, by far. We have the greatest military equipment in the world, by far. You had to see this in real time. You had to see this—the professionalism and the bravery. Everything. Everything about it. You almost couldn’t hold them back. It was like they wanted to go so badly.
Most people would say, “I’ll take a pass.” I know that Charlie would have wanted to go, because Charlie’s a very brave person.
I know a lot of other people would have said, “I think I’ll pass on this one. Let’s watch it on television.” It’s been amazing to see how good they were, how professional they were, how incredible the equipment we have is—the level of equipment—and to see how it worked so perfectly.
If you compare this to attacks on Iran over the years, with helicopters crashing into each other, the whole thing was a mess. The Jimmy Carter situation was a mess. Every other situation compared to this—nobody’s ever seen anything like this.
Look, the Iranian attack—knocking out their nuclear power—was big. We had peace in the Middle East, and we have it. Without that, you could never have peace in the Middle East. We knocked them out, and look what’s happening now to Iran—but we knocked it out. It could not have been better, and this could not have been better.
I don’t even know which is… these are both really important. If you think about equal importance, I wonder how it’s going to be rated. But knocking out the nuclear power—I think they were ready. Within two months, they would have been a nuclear power.
[…]
These people are the most highly trained soldiers in the world. There’s nobody—nobody—that has their talent, because it’s talent. It’s not just bravery. It’s bravery—you have to have the bravery—but it’s talent. Nobody has talent like this, and nobody has equipment like we have.
I mean, everything was pinpoint. Every single thing—they had everything practiced. They actually built a house that was identical to the one they went into, with all the safes, all the steel all over the place, at the top of stairways, and a room.”
Delta Force, officially the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D), is a U.S. Army special mission unit specializing in counter-terrorism and hostage rescue, operating under the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
Key missions include counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, direct action raids, and special reconnaissance. The unit is also known by nicknames such as “The Unit,” “Combat Applications Group” (CAG), “Task Force Green,” and “D-Boys”.
Its headquarters are located at Fort Liberty, North Carolina. The unit comprises approximately 1,000 personnel, including 250–300 “operators,” organized into various squadrons.
More from Military.com:
Delta Force was famously involved in the 1993 operation to capture Somali militia leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid in Mogadishu and the subsequent effort to rescue Army pilot Michael Durant after his helicopter crashed during the mission.
Five Delta operators were killed in that incident, as well as 14 other US troops. Several hundred Somali fighters and civilians were also killed.
Delta was also involved in a failed effort to retrieve hostages from the US Embassy in Iran in 1980.
Delta pulled out of Iraq when US forces there left in 2011, but it has been a consistent presence in the fight against ISIS in the country, Wesley Morgan wrote in The Washington Post in 2015.
Delta Force had close ties with the Iraqi Kurds who were fighting ISIS and operated in Syria, including killing high-ranking ISIS leader Abu Sayyaf there in 2015, Morgan wrote.
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