Before Maduro’s capture in Venezuela, US spoke with minister who is his loyal ally

Trump administration officials had been in discussions with Venezuela’s hardline Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello months before the US operation to seize the country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, and have been in communication ‌with him since then, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.The officials warned Cabello, 62, against using the security services or militant ruling-party supporters overseen by him to target the country’s opposition, four ‍sources said. That security apparatus, which includes the intelligence services, police and the armed forces, remains largely intact after the January 3 US raid.Cabello is named in the same US drug-trafficking indictment that the Trump administration used as justification to arrest Maduro, but was not taken as part of the operation.The communication with Cabello, which had also touched on the sanctions the US had imposed on him and the indictment he faced, dated back to the early days of the current Trump administration and continued in the weeks just before the US ousting of Maduro, two ⁠sources familiar with the discussions said. The administration had also been in touch with Cabello since Maduro’s ousting, four of the people said.The communications, which have not been previously reported, are critical to the Trump administration’s efforts to control the situation inside Venezuela. If Cabello decides to unleash the forces that he controls, it could foment the kind of chaos that Trump wants to avoid and threaten interim president Delcy Rodriguez’s grip on power, according to a source briefed on US concerns.It is not clear if the Trump administration’s discussions with Cabello extended to questions about the future governance of Venezuela. Also unclear is whether Cabello has heeded the US warnings. He has publicly pledged unity with Rodriguez, whom Trump has so far praised.