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The morning of January 3, 2026, will likely be recorded in military history alongside Operations Neptune Spear (Bin Laden) and Kayla Mueller (Al-Baghdadi). However, Operation Absolute Resolve—the extraction of Nicolás Maduro from the heart of a fortified Caracas—was exponentially more complex. This wasn't a raid on a terrorist hideout in the desert; this was a Direct Action (DA) mission against a sitting head of state, protected by Russian-made air defense systems and a Praetorian Guard of Cuban intelligence officers.
Based on emerging reports, leaked telemetry, and defense analysis, here is the definitive operational review of how the US military dismantled a regime in under three hours.
Phase I: Shaping the Battlespace (The "Soft" War)
Long before the first helicopter rotor turned, the battle was being fought in the digital domain. For months, the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) had maintained a "Counternarcotics Wall" off the Venezuelan coast. While the public saw drug interdiction, the reality was Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB).
The US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers were soaking up electronic signals, mapping the frequencies of the Venezuelan S-300VM and Buk-M2 missile batteries. Simultaneously, CIA paramilitary elements and DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) assets were on the ground in Caracas. They confirmed a critical pattern-of-life shift: Maduro had largely abandoned the ceremonial Miraflores Palace. His paranoia had driven him into a hardened bunker complex within Fuerte Tiuna, the primary military garrison of Caracas. He believed the surrounding thousands of troops made him untouchable.
He was wrong. It simply created a "target-rich environment."
The Cyber-Kinetic Strike: 02:00 VET
The operation initiated not with an explosion, but with a system failure. At exactly 02:00 local time, US Cyber Command executed a payload that had likely been dormant in the Venezuelan national grid for months. This wasn't a simple power cut; it was a synchronized decapitation of the Command and Control (C2) infrastructure.
The Grid: Power was severed to three specific sectors in Northern Venezuela.
The Comms: High-altitude electromagnetic jamming flooded the VHF/UHF spectrum. The encrypted lines between Fuerte Tiuna and the regional defense zones (REDI) went dead.
The Blindness: The Integrated Air Defense System (IADS) radars were spoofed, showing "ghost fleets" in the Caribbean while masking the real threat approaching from the north.
Phase II: Air Dominance (SEAD)
At 02:01, the airspace became contested. Launching from carrier strike groups and land bases in Puerto Rico, the "Package" arrived.
The primary threat to the insertion force was the Russian S-300 missile system. To negate this, the US deployed F-35C Lightning IIs carrying the AGM-88G AARGM-ER (Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile - Extended Range). These stealth fighters didn't need to level the city; they just needed to kill the "eyes" of the enemy. The missiles homed in on the radar emitters, destroying the guidance systems of the Venezuelan air defense.
Supporting them were EA-18G Growlers, utilizing Next Generation Jammers to create an electronic corridor. For the Venezuelan radar operators, their screens became walls of white noise. The door was kicked open.
Phase III: The Infiltration (160th SOAR)
With the air defense network suppressed, the "Night Stalkers" of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) entered the fray. They utilized a mixed flight of MH-60M Black Hawks (configured as Direct Action Penetrators) and heavy-lift MH-47G Chinooks.
Flying "Nap-of-the-Earth" (NOE)—hugging the terrain at altitudes as low as 50 feet—the pilots navigated the mountainous terrain surrounding Caracas in pitch darkness using AN/AVS-6 night vision. The noise discipline was critical; the rotors would only be audible seconds before landing.
The Objective: "Aztec"
The target compound inside Fuerte Tiuna was defended by three distinct layers of humanity:
Outer Ring: The Guardia Nacional Bolivariana (GNB). Conscripts with low morale.
Inner Ring: The DGCIM (Military Counterintelligence). Highly motivated loyalists.
The Core: "Unit 8" – Elite Cuban Special Forces responsible for presidential security.
Phase IV: Actions on the Objective
02:30 VET – The Breach
The MH-60M DAPs initiated the violence of action. Their miniguns, capable of firing 6,000 rounds per minute, swept the guard towers and neutralized "technical" vehicles mounting heavy machine guns. This was surgical fire—avoiding the barracks where sleeping conscripts lay, focusing solely on active threats.
As the Chinooks flared and ramped down in the courtyard, the ground force poured out. This element was a fusion of Delta Force (1st SFOD-D) operators—specializing in hostage rescue and HVT capture—and the FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT).
Tactical Note: The inclusion of the FBI was a strategic legal maneuver. It framed the operation as a law enforcement arrest of a "narco-terrorist" under US indictment, rather than a political assassination or military coup.
The Firefight
The Delta operators, utilizing GPNVG-18 panoramic night vision (giving them a 97-degree field of view), moved with terrifying speed. The GNB conscripts in the outer ring largely surrendered or fled immediately.
The DGCIM in the main structure fought back. AK-103 fire erupted from the lower windows. The operators responded with suppressed HK416s and the new XM250 Next Generation Squad Weapons, the 6.8mm rounds punching easily through the cover used by the regime forces.
The fiercest resistance occurred at the "Fatal Funnel"—the stairwell leading to the third-floor safe room. The Cuban detail barricaded the hallway. Delta breachers utilized linear charges to blow the doors, followed by a deluge of flash-bangs. The subsequent Close Quarters Battle (CQB) was brutal and brief. Intelligence reports indicate the Cuban detail suffered 100% casualties.
02:45 VET – Jackpot
Inside the master suite's hardened panic room, the assault team located Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Despite the rhetoric of "fighting to the death," the capture was completed without resistance from the targets.
The FBI HRT immediately performed biometric verification (fingerprint and retinal scan) against a database loaded onto a handheld tactical device.
Confirmation Code: "VIVID."
The target was secured.
Phase V: The "Golden Hour" Extraction
Getting in is difficult; getting out with a high-value prisoner while a city wakes up is a nightmare. By 02:50, the Venezuelan military chain of command was attempting to reorganize. Armored vehicles from the loyalist Orinoco Battalion began moving toward Fuerte Tiuna.
This is where the AC-130J Ghostrider earned its keep. Loitering at 15,000 feet in a pylon turn, the gunship began raining 30mm and 105mm fire on the approaching armored columns. The precision was absolute—stopping the tanks in the street without destroying the surrounding apartment blocks.
The Exfil
The assault team loaded the detainees onto the MH-47Gs. As they lifted off, they took small arms fire from rooftops, but the AH-6 "Little Bird" gunships escorting them suppressed the threats. The flight time back to the fleet was 40 minutes.
At 03:30, the package touched down on the deck of the USS Iwo Jima. Maduro was transferred to a waiting V-22 Osprey with extended-range fuel tanks for immediate transport to US soil.
The Aftermath and Analysis
Why It Worked
Speed: The entire operation, from the first boot on the ground to wheels up, took less than 45 minutes. The Venezuelan military, cumbersome and reliant on top-down orders, could not react in time.
Decapitation: By severing the comms lines first, the local commanders in Fuerte Tiuna could not call for air support or coordinate a defense with units outside the city.
Restraint: By not bombing the city or targeting regular army barracks, the US minimized the "rally around the flag" effect. Most Venezuelan soldiers simply stayed in their bunks, unwilling to die for a leader who was already captured.
The Gear That Won the Night
Comms: The Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) network allowed commanders in Florida to see through the eyes of the operators in real-time.
Weaponry: The shift to 6.8mm ammunition provided the barrier penetration needed to deal with enemies hiding behind concrete walls.
Cyber: The ability to "turn off" a specific district's power grid while leaving the rest of the city running is a capability that terrifyingly demonstrates US cyber dominance.
The Geopolitical Fallout
Nicolás Maduro is currently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York, facing charges of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking conspiracy. The "Sovereign Immunity" defense will be his legal team's main play, but the US Department of Justice is treating this as a dismantling of a criminal enterprise (The Cartel of the Suns) rather than a war against a nation.
Operation Absolute Resolve serves as a stark warning. In the era of modern warfare, distance is no longer a defense, and bunkers are merely tombs with waiting rooms. The US military has proven that if the objective is high enough, there is no place on earth beyond their reach.
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