The US says its military operation to capture Venezuela's president took months of planning, but when Donald Trump gave the order to launch, Operation Absolute Resolve only lasted about 150 minutes.

The surprise early-morning attack on Saturday marked an unprecedented event in modern politics and culminated in the arrest of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Captured by troops from an elite US army unit as they tried to flee into a fortified safe room, the pair are now being held in a detention centre in New York and face narco-terrorism charges.

As the sun rose on Saturday, the scale of the military operation in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, was clear. Pictures from Fuerte Tiuna, a huge military complex where top government officials live, show bombed out buildings and charred, smouldering cars. It was at this compound that Maduro and his wife were captured, Venezuelan ruling party leader Nahum Fernández told the Associated Press.

Operation Absolute Resolve began at around 02:00 in Caracas as US forces executed air strikes to disable Venezuela's air defenses, allowing military helicopters to approach Fuerte Tiuna. Troops from the US Army's Delta Force quickly moved in, reaching the compound at 02:01 local time; Maduro reportedly surrendered without a struggle, although he attempted to escape into a secure area.

Now in US custody, Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores were flown approximately 2,100 miles to New York City, where they face a slew of charges, including conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism. The operation's visual elements, including maps showing the airstrikes and photographs capturing the operation’s key moments, provide stark insight into this historical event.