At least 40 people were killed in the U.S. attack on Venezuela early Saturday, including military personnel and civilians, according to a senior Venezuelan official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe preliminary reports,
The New York Times reports.
President Trump, speaking on Fox News on Saturday, said that no American troops had been killed. He suggested, however, that some service members had been injured. Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said later in the day at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago with Mr. Trump that U.S. helicopters moving to extract President Nicolás Maduro and his wife had come under fire. He said that one helicopter had been hit but “remained flyable,” and that all U.S. aircraft “came home.”
About half a dozen soldiers were injured in the overall operation to capture Mr. Maduro, according to two U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. attack, details began to emerge of the death of a Venezuelan civilian in Catia La Mar, a low-income coastal area just west of the Caracas airport. There, an airstrike hit a three-story civilian apartment complex and knocked out an exterior wall early Saturday as U.S. forces assaulted the city.
The strike killed Rosa González, 80, her family said, and seriously wounded a second person.
