Overview
- A dozen F-22s left Puerto Rico on January 4 after supporting the operation, as the administration emphasizes naval enforcement against sanctioned oil shipments while carriers and other assets remain in the region.
- Cuba named 32 fallen military and police personnel and declared mourning, and Venezuela’s military reported 23 service members killed, while prosecutors in Caracas opened a probe into alleged war crimes and cited additional deaths.
- Seven U.S. service members were injured during the raid, five returned to duty and two are recovering, and one U.S. aircraft was hit by fire but remained flyable, officials said.
- The mission used more than 150 aircraft, cyber and electronic effects, and a helicopter insertion by elite units to seize Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, who later pleaded not guilty in a New York courtroom.
- Fact-checkers flagged a wave of AI-generated and recycled visuals falsely depicting celebrations, arrests, and combat scenes, including mislabeled old footage and synthetic images detected by watermarking tools.