The Cuban regime has explicitly put forward a scenario that took on an unprecedented dimension following the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela: that a similar operation could target one of the key leaders of Cuba.
The possibility was raised this weekend by the head of the Personal Security Directorate, the agency of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) responsible for protecting Raúl Castro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and other members of the regime's leadership.
During the event commemorating the 65th anniversary of that institution, led by Raúl and Díaz-Canel, Brigadier General Emir Mesa Corona recalled the 32 Cubans who died in Venezuela during the American operation that resulted in the capture of Maduro and openly discussed how the regime's forces would respond to an attempt to capture one of its leaders.
" If they fought like lions outside of Cuba, what would each member of the country's leadership, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Military Counterintelligence, the Ministry of Interior, and every revolutionary Cuban do on the day they try to assault us or attempt, as they dream, to kidnap or murder even one of our top leaders," stated Mesa Corona, according to the report published by the Cuban Presidency.
The statement is particularly significant due to who pronounces it, in front of whom, and in what context: the head of the agency responsible for preventing an attack or the extraction of high-ranking officials, during an event presided over by Raúl Castro and Díaz-Canel, and eight months after U.S. forces managed to capture Maduro despite the measures in place to protect him.
There is no public information that allows us to assert that Washington has decided to carry out an operation of that nature in Cuba. However, the United States has not publicly ruled out that possibility when high-ranking officials have been directly questioned about it.
The 32 dead in Venezuela as a "guideline to follow."
The connection established by the regime with what happened in Venezuela was not implicit.
Raúl Castro dedicated part of his message to the 32 Cubans who died during the U.S. operation on January 3 and called for their actions to serve as a model for the members of the Personal Security Directorate.
"May the blood that was shed never be forgotten and may their example serve as a guide in the daily work of this Directorate," Castro stated in a letter read during the event by the Minister of the Interior, Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas.
Mesa Corona presented them, in turn, as a "paradigm and symbol" and stated that they demonstrated "what the children of this people are made of."
Immediately afterwards, he raised the question of what would happen if the target were not Maduro, but one of the main Cuban leaders.
The sequence is revealing: the 32 men who were killed during the operation that resulted in the capture of the Venezuelan leader are held up as an example for those who would need to prevent a possible operation against the leadership in Havana.
Washington has not ruled out a similar operation
The concern reflected in the current discourse on Personal Security has a particularly relevant precedent.
In June, the U.S. Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, was directly questioned about the possibility of carrying out a capture or elimination operation similar to that executed against Maduro against Díaz-Canel.
“Options, options, options. Our job is to present options at different levels, depending on what the President of the United States wants to do, as he is the Commander in Chief,” Hegseth responded.
In response to the specific question of whether the capture or removal of Díaz-Canel remained a possibility, Hegseth did not dismiss it either.
"We have options for every scenario. That is our job. We literally dedicate ourselves to planning," he stated.
The official added that "all those options are on the table" and made it clear that any decision would ultimately correspond to President Donald Trump.
The statements were made following Hegseth's visit to the Guantanamo Naval Base, where he had used the operation against Maduro to issue a warning to the Cuban regime.
When recalling the incursion in Caracas, the U.S. secretary emphasized the inability of the security apparatus protecting Maduro to stop his country's forces: "The Russian air defenses and the Cuban guards were no match for our operators, our Rangers".
The reference took on special significance for Havana. Those Cubans who died during the operation are precisely the ones that the regime honored this past weekend, and whose behavior Raúl Castro now presents as a "guide to follow" for those responsible for protecting the leadership.
Havana would have strengthened the protection of Raúl and Díaz-Canel
Subsequent signals indicated that the Cuban government took the possibility of U.S. action against its leadership seriously.
In August, CiberCuba reported, citing research from The New York Times based on U.S. officials, that Havana has supposedly reinforced the security of Raúl Castro and Díaz-Canel to complicate any potential operation by the United States aimed at capturing or killing them.
According to that information, in the months following Maduro's capture, Cuban authorities adopted defensive measures around both leaders.
Washington would also have intensified intelligence gathering on Cuba, while the Pentagon used that information to keep potential military scenarios up to date.
None of those elements prove that Trump ordered an operation to capture Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro, or any other Cuban leader. However, they do provide a much more concrete context to the words now spoken by the Chief of Personal Security.
First, U.S. forces captured Maduro in an operation during which 32 Cubans were killed. Afterwards, Hegseth refused to rule out that a similar action could be carried out against Díaz-Canel. Later, it was revealed that Havana had strengthened the protection of its leadership.
And now the person directly responsible for that protection is publicly questioning what would happen if someone tried to "kidnap or assassinate" one of the main Cuban leaders.
Díaz-Canel is also considering a military action
Díaz-Canel himself had publicly acknowledged that the regime considers direct military action among the possible scenarios in its confrontation with Washington.
In June, the leader stated that the United States was managing three scenarios against Cuba: provoking a social outbreak, forcing a dialogue under pressure, or executing a direct military aggression.
In light of the latest possibility, Díaz-Canel warned that an invasion of the island would provoke a "bath of blood with incalculable consequences".
The warning was embedded in a rhetoric of resistance that the regime has intensified, especially since Maduro's capture.
A few days after the operation in Venezuela, Díaz-Canel had stated that Cuba "does not threaten, it prepares" and that it was ready to defend itself "to the last drop of blood."
Months later, during an interview with Sky News, he once again resorted to practically the same formula to assert that the regime would not relinquish its sovereignty and would fight “to the last drop of blood.”
"Nobody gives up here."
The narrative of resistance has also permeated the political and military discourse of the regime.
After Maduro's capture, the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces raised its tone by proclaiming that «the ceasefire order will never be given» when it involves «surrendering to the enemy».
The military organization even called for the removal of the words "surrender" and "defeat" from its terminology and revived the formula of "victory or death."
The slogan «no one surrenders here» has also repeatedly appeared in official discourse, to the extent that it is used to respond to domestic issues that have nothing to do with a military confrontation.
In July, for instance, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy resorted to that expression after another total collapse of the National Electric Power System (SEN).
The use of a combative language even in the face of an electrical crisis highlights the extent to which the epic of resistance continues to serve as a political response from the regime in very diverse scenarios.
Raúl, "with one foot in the stirrup"
Raúl Castro's public reappearance this weekend was similarly wrapped in that military narrative.
The Presidency presented him as a man of "firmness" and "the lineage of an undefeated guerrilla fighter," while the head of Personal Security stated that at 95 years old, he remains "with one foot in the stirrup, ready to defend the Revolution."
The metaphor has accompanied Castro since he formally stepped down from the leadership of the Communist Party in 2021, when he himself promised to remain "with one foot in the stirrup" to defend the system until the end of his life.
Since then, official propaganda has repeatedly resurrected that image and combined it with even more aggressive expressions.
On the past First of May, a message attributed to Raúl stated that they remained “with one foot in the stirrup and ready for the charge with the machete.”
Now, however, that epic is associated with a much more concrete scenario.
No longer is there just talk of defending the "Revolution" in general terms. The head of the body responsible for the physical protection of the leadership explicitly mentions the possibility that someone may attempt to "kidnap or assassinate" one of its members and cites the example of the Cubans who died during the capture of Maduro.
The "Maduro scenario" enters the Personal Security discourse
For decades, the Cuban regime has used the threat of a U.S. intervention as a recurring element of political mobilization and justification for its military and repressive apparatus.
The capture of Maduro, however, set a precedent of a different nature: U.S. forces demonstrated that they could carry out an operation in the region specifically aimed at extracting a leader despite the military and intelligence apparatus that protected him.
For Cuba, that precedent also had a direct cost: 32 members of its forces died during the operation.
Eight months later, those same deceased individuals are presented by Raúl Castro as a "guideline to follow" for Personal Security.
And the head of that organization publicly wonders how the FAR, the MININT, Military Counterintelligence, and "every revolutionary Cuban" would respond if someone tried to do something similar to a Cuban leader as what happened in Venezuela.
Washington, for its part, has not announced plans to carry out an extraction operation in Cuba. However, when the Secretary of War was specifically questioned about the capture or elimination of Díaz-Canel, he did not rule out the possibility and stated that "all those options are on the table."
Havana also does not seem to be treating that scenario merely as abstract propaganda regarding a potential "invasion." The information about the reinforcement of security for its leadership, the warnings from Díaz-Canel, and now the words of the head of Personal Security show that this possibility is part of their political and security discourse.
Maduro's precedent is evident: the Cuban regime publicly contemplates a scenario in which one of its own leaders could become a target of a capture operation and proclaims that its forces would be ready to fight to prevent it.
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