Trump administration reportedly warns Maduro ally Diosdado Cabello could be next [View all]
Source: The Guardian
The Trump administration has reportedly put Venezuela’s hardline interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, on notice that he could be next to fall if he does not support the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, who has been in power since the Nicolás Maduro was seized on Saturday.
Reuters reported that US officials are “especially concerned” that Cabello – long seen by many as the regime’s real No 2 – could sabotage Washington’s plan to keep key figures from Maduro’s inner circle in place in the name of stability while pursuing a transition, and provide unrestricted access to Venezuela’s oil...
Cabello has a long history of rivalry with Rodríguez and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, the president of the Venezuelan congress. Although many considered him the regime’s second-most-powerful figure after Maduro, analysts stress that there was no clear hierarchy. Power was divided among factions – one dominated by Cabello, another by the Rodríguez siblings, among others – that coexisted and competed.
Cabello was among the officers who took part in Hugo Chávez’s failed coup attempt in 1992 and is therefore regarded as a “core” Chavista. The interior minister is also widely seen as one of those most responsible for the Maduro regime’s extensive and well-documented human rights abuses, which included more than 20,000 extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture, and the jailing of thousands of political opponents.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/07/trump-maduro-diosdado-cabello
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