WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Saturday that US is 'going to run' Venezuela until safe transition of power can take place.

The US captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and flew him out of the country in a stunning military operation early Saturday that plucked a sitting leader from office - the culmination of months of escalating Trump administration pressure on the oil-rich South American nation.

Maduro and his wife, taken overnight from their home on a military base, were aboard a US warship on their way to New York, where they were to face criminal charges.

Trump said the US planned to run Venezuela until a transition of power can take place. He claimed the American presence was already in place, though there were no immediate signs that the US was running the country.

“We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference where he boasted that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.”

Venezuelan state TV broadcast live images of small groups of Maduro supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.