Maduro arrest by U.S. leaves Venezuela facing armed groups threat
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According to reports, Venezuela is teetering on the edge after the US captured and detained former President Nicolás Maduro, while armed militias, guerrilla groups and criminal networks threaten the path to stability.
As interim President Delcy Rodríguez assumed control with the support of President Trump’s administration, analysts warned that the country was fully infested with heavily armed groups that could derail any progress towards stability.
“All armed groups have the power to sabotage any transition because of the conditions of instability they can create,” said Andrei Serbin Pont, a military analyst and president of the Buenos Aires-based think tank Cries. Financial Times.
“There are non-state armed groups throughout Venezuelan territory,” he said.
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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who runs the Cartel de los Soles, is next to members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang at an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado, according to the State Department. (Jesus Vargas/Getty Images; Edward Romero)
Experts say Rodríguez must keep together the regime’s two most powerful radicals: Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.
“The focus is on Diosdado Cabello right now,” said Venezuelan military strategist José García. Reuters“Because he is the most ideological, violent and unpredictable element of the Venezuelan regime.”
“Delcy needs to walk a tightrope,” said Phil Gunson, an analyst at Crisis Group in Caracas.
“They are in no position to make any deal with Trump unless they can get the approval of the gunmen, which is basically Padrino and Cabello.”
Since Maduro’s ouster, government-allied militias known as “colectivos” have been deployed in Caracas and other cities to maintain order and suppress dissent.
“The future is uncertain, the collectivos have weapons, the Colombian guerrilla is already in Venezuela, so we don’t know what will happen, time will tell,” said Oswaldo, a 69-year-old shop owner. Telegram.
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Demonstrators criticizing the government clashed with state security forces. After the last days full of conflict, interim president Guaido wants to keep the pressure on President Maduro with the support of his supporters. (Rafael Hernandez/image alliance/Getty Images)
As Fox News Digital previously reported, armed motorcyclists and masked enforcers set up checkpoints in the capital, searching civilians’ phones and vehicles for signs of opposition to the US crackdown.
Serbin Pont added, “This environment of instability plays into the hands of armed actors.”
Outside the capital, guerrilla groups and organized crime groups exploit the power vacuum along Venezuela’s borders and in its resource-rich interior.
The guerrillas currently operate along Venezuela’s 2,219-kilometer border with Colombia and control illegal mining near the Orinoco oil belt.
The National Liberation Army (ELN), a Colombian Marxist guerrilla group that has thousands of fighters and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, operates as a paramilitary force in Venezuela.
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After the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro, armed collectives are deployed in Venezuelan cities while guerrilla groups control the borders. (Juancho Torres/Anadolu via Getty Image)
Elizabeth Dickson, Crisis Group’s deputy director for Latin America, said the ELN “has been operating in Venezuela … essentially as a paramilitary force so far aligned with the interests of the Maduro government.”
Former ELN commander Carlos Arturo Velandia also told the Financial Times that the group would side with Chavismo’s most radical wing if Venezuela’s power bloc was broken.
Colectivos also function as armed enforcers of political loyalty.
“It is we who are called to defend this revolutionary process radically, without hesitation; we the collectivos are the main means of continuing this struggle,” said Luis Cortéz, commander of the Colectivo Catedral Combativa.
“We are always fighting and we will always be fighting in the streets.”
Other armed actors include Segunda Marquetalia, a splinter group of Colombia’s former FARC rebels. Both guerrilla groups work with local criminal organizations known as “sistemas”, which have ties to politicians.
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The Tren de Aragua cartel, designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States, has spread to Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and the United States.
As reported by Fox News Digital, an unsealed indictment alleges that Maduro “participated in, perpetuated, and protected a culture of corruption” that involved drug trafficking with many of the aforementioned groups, including Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, ELN, FARC groups, and Tren de Aragua.
