US President Donald Trump is set to meet on Friday with the elite special forces soldiers credited with capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, the White House has announced.
The meeting, scheduled at Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina, will include First Lady Melania Trump, according to the White House statement.
The high-profile operation took place in Caracas on January 3, when US special forces flew in under the cover of darkness, seizing Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from a fortified compound in the Venezuelan capital.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump and the first lady will “meet with military families and the heroic members of our special forces who carried out the successful ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ in Venezuela and helped bring narco-terrorist Nicolas Maduro to justice.”
Maduro is currently detained in the United States, where he faces drug trafficking and other criminal charges. He has pleaded not guilty, and his next court appearance in New York is scheduled for March 17.
Trump has frequently hailed the mission as a demonstration of US military capability and used it to assert Washington’s influence in the region.
