Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro raced to close the 6ins-thick steel door of a safe room seconds before he and wife Cilia were snatched by US Special Forces, it emerged on Saturday.

The full details of one of the most audacious military raids in modern history were revealed by Donald Trump and his closest advisers who watched the daring two-hour 28-minute operation unfold on screens inside a secure room at Mar-a-Lago, the US President's Florida estate.

After weeks of meticulous planning and waiting for the weather to be 'perfect', Mr Trump gave the go-ahead for Operation Absolute Resolve at 10.46pm Eastern Standard Time on Friday night (11.46pm in Venezuela, 3.46am on Saturday in the UK) with the words: 'Good luck and God speed.'

Maduro was 'heavily guarded' in a bunker on a military base in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, that was 'like a fortress', Mr Trump said.

'It had what they call a safe space where it's solid steel all around. He didn't get that space closed. He was trying to get into it, but got bum-rushed so fast that he didn't get into it.

'It was a very thick door, a very heavy door. But he was unable to get to that door. He made it to the door but he was unable to close it.' Soldiers from Delta Force – the US Army's elite special operations unit – were equipped with blow torches to cut through the steel door in case Mr Maduro managed to lock himself in.

Mr Trump said: 'He wasn't able to shut the door because our guys were so fast.

'Did we get him by surprise? Sort of surprise, but they were waiting for something. It was a lot of opposition. There was a lot of gunfire.'

President Donald Trump (centre) watches the military operation in Venezuela with CIA Director John Ratcliffe (left) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (right) from Mar-a-Lago resort

Caracas was plunged into darkness as the raid began. The US President said the extraction force had practised for months, adding: 'They actually built a house which was identical to the one they went into with all that steel all over the place. They were ready for anything. Then we turned off all the lights.'

Mr Trump declined to reveal whether CIA spies on the ground who have been monitoring Maduro's movements for months hijacked the power grid or launched a cyber attack.

He said: 'The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have.' General Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, hailed the joint effort by US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Special Forces and intelligence agencies who 'spent months' on the operation, including studying Maduro's movements, what he wore, what he ate, his children and even his pets.

He said: 'This mission was meticulously planned. This was an audacious operation that only the United States could do, an extraction so precise it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the western hemisphere in close co-ordination, all coming together in time and place to create a layered effect all for a single purpose – to get an interdiction force into downtown Caracas while maintaining the element of surprise.'