The Cuban regime has explicitly presented 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 main leaders of Cuba.
The possibility was mentioned 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 ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of that institution, led by Raúl and Díaz-Canel, Brigade General Emir Mesa Corona recalled the 32 Cubans who died in Venezuela during the U.S. operation that resulted in the capture of Maduro, and openly questioned 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, Military Counterintelligence, the Ministry of the Interior, and every revolutionary Cuban do the day they attempt to attack us or try, as they dream, to kidnap or assassinate just one of our key leaders," asserted Mesa Corona, according to the chronicle published by the Cuban Presidency.
The statement is particularly significant given who makes it, before whom, and in what context: the head of the agency responsible for preventing an attack or an extraction of the leadership, 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 to support the claim 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 "guide 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 asked that their actions 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 become the guiding light in the daily work of this Directorate," Castro stated in a letter read during the ceremony by the Minister of the Interior, Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas.
Mesa Corona introduced them as a "paradigm and symbol" and stated that they demonstrated "what the children of this town are made of."
Immediately afterward, he posed the question of what would happen if the target were not Maduro, but rather one of the top Cuban leaders.
The sequence is revealing: the 32 men who died during the operation that ended with the capture of the Venezuelan leader are held up as an example for those who would have to prevent a possible operation against the leadership in Havana.
Washington has not ruled out a similar operation
The concern now reflected in the discourse on Personal Security has a particularly significant precedent.
In June, the United States 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, who is the Commander in Chief," Hegseth responded.
In response to the specific question of whether the capture or removal of Díaz-Canel was still a possibility, Hegseth did not rule it out either.
"We have options for every scenario. That is our job. We literally specialize in planning," he stated.
The official added that «all those options are on the table» and made it clear that any decision would ultimately be up to President Donald Trump.
The statements were made following Hegseth's visit to the Guantanamo Naval Base, where he had specifically used the operation against Maduro to issue a warning to the Cuban regime.
Recalling the incursion in Caracas, the U.S. secretary emphasized the failure 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 the regime honored this 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 a U.S. action against its leadership seriously.
In August, CiberCuba reported, citing a research article from The New York Times based on U.S. officials, that Havana had strengthened the security of Raúl Castro and Díaz-Canel to hinder a potential operation by the United States aimed at capturing or killing them.
According to that information, in the months following Maduro's capture, the Cuban authorities implemented defensive measures around both leaders.
Washington would also have intensified its intelligence gathering on Cuba, while the Pentagon used that information to keep potential military scenarios updated.
None of those elements proves 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 for the words recently spoken by the head of Personal Security.
First, U.S. forces captured Maduro in an operation where 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 publicly questions what would happen if someone tried to "kidnap or assassinate" one of the top Cuban leaders.
Díaz-Canel also considers 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 explosion, 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 the capture of Maduro.
A few days after the operation in Venezuela, Díaz-Canel 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 resorted to practically the same formula to assert that the regime would not relinquish its sovereignty and would fight "until the last drop of blood."
"No one 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 rhetoric by proclaiming that “the ceasefire order will never be given” when it involves “surrendering to the enemy.”
The military body even called for the removal of the words "surrender" and "defeat" from its terminology, and reinstated the phrase "victory or death."
The slogan «no one gives up here» has also repeatedly appeared in official discourse, to the point of being used to address internal issues that have nothing to do with military confrontation.
In July, for example, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy used that expression after another complete collapse of the National Electroenergetic System (SEN).
The use of a combative language, even in the face of an electrical crisis, illustrates the extent to which the epic of resistance continues to function as a political response of the regime to very different 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 "determination" and "the lineage of an undefeated guerrilla," 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 revisited that image and combined it with even more aggressive expressions.
On the past May First, a message attributed to Raúl assured that they remained “with one foot in the stirrup and ready for the charge with machetes.”
Now, however, that epic is associated with a much more concrete scenario.
It is no longer just a matter of generically defending the "Revolution." The head of the body responsible for physically protecting the leadership explicitly mentions the possibility that someone might try to "kidnap or assassinate" one of its members and uses the Cubans who died during the capture of Maduro as an example.
The "Maduro scenario" enters the discourse of Personal Security
For decades, the Cuban regime has used the threat of U.S. intervention as a recurring element of political mobilization and justification for its military and repressive apparatus.
However, Maduro's capture set a precedent of a different nature: U.S. forces demonstrated that they could conduct an operation in the region specifically aimed at removing a ruler despite the military and intelligence apparatus that protected him.
For Cuba, moreover, that precedent 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 agency publicly wonders how the FAR, the MININT, Military Counterintelligence, and "every revolutionary Cuban" would respond if someone were to do something similar to a Cuban leader as happened in Venezuela.
Washington, for its part, has not announced any 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 assured that "all those options are on the table."
Havana no longer seems to regard that scenario merely as abstract propaganda about a potential "invasion." The information regarding the reinforcement of security for its leadership, the warnings from Díaz-Canel, and now the words from the head of Personal Security indicate that this possibility is part of their political and security narrative.
Maduro's precedent is evident: the Cuban regime publicly envisions a scenario in which one of its own leaders could become the target of a capture operation and claims that its forces would be prepared to fight to prevent it.
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