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‘New Normal’: Is Pakistan trying to set new red lines with Afghan Taliban?
Islamabad, Pakistan – When Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, visited Kabul in April and met his Afghan Taliban counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, analysts viewed the occasion as marking a reset of relations amid the increasing hostilities between the two former allies.
Subsequent meetings between the two in May and August, brokered by China, reinforced that sentiment.
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But a deadly weekend of clashes along the countries’ porous border has put those diplomatic overtures on hold. Islamabad says it killed more than 200 Taliban fighters; the Taliban government says 58 Pakistani soldiers were killed. The death toll on both sides underscores how fragile the détente earlier in the year was.
Pakistan, which has been grappling with a dramatic surge in attacks – especially in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where dozens of military personnel have died – accuses the Taliban of giving sanctuary to armed groups that launch cross-border attacks.
The Taliban denies those charges. But on Thursday night, Kabul was rocked by explosions and gunfire. Pakistan neither confirmed nor denied involvement, but the Taliban government said Pakistan had been behind the attacks in Kabul and in an eastern Afghan province, and promised retaliation.
Fighting flared again on Saturday night. Pakistan acknowledged that the clashes left at least 23 of its soldiers dead and another 29 injured, and said its forces had taken control of more than 21 posts on Afghan territory. Kabul has not confirmed the Taliban’s casualty figures.
That immediate military escalation has passed, but the clashes have evoked parallels with Pakistan’s tense new equation with its eastern neighbour, India, after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for the killing of 26 civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir in April.
Like the Taliban’s position on anti-Pakistan armed groups ostensibly operating from Afghan soil, Islamabad, too, rejected any link with the attackers in Indian-administered Kashmir. But just as Islamabad has long accused the Taliban of sheltering groups that attack Pakistan, India has, for decades, alleged that Pakistan supports and sponsors “terrorist” groups that target its territory.
Now, some analysts say, Pakistan is trying to establish a “new normal” with the Taliban, by making clear that future attacks on its soil could invite retribution inside Afghanistan. The stance mirrors a position India’s Narendra Modi government took against Pakistan in April, and that Islamabad protested against at the time.
India launched strikes inside Pakistani territory in May, resulting in a four-day-long conflict, with both sides using missiles, drones and artillery to attack each other.
This shifting landscape between Pakistan and Afghanistan suggests, analysts say, that while the fighting over the weekend might have eased, tensions are likely to simmer in the coming weeks, and a lasting breakthrough remains elusive.
Trigger behind the border clashes
Out of the various armed groups reportedly operating from Afghanistan, Pakistani authorities regard the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as the biggest threat. The TTP emerged in 2007 amid the United States-led, so-called “war on terror”, and has for years waged an armed campaign against Islamabad.
It seeks to implement strict Islamic law, has demanded the release of imprisoned members, and calls for a reversal of the merger of Pakistan’s former tribal areas with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The TTP is independent of Afghanistan’s Taliban, but the two groups are ideologically aligned.
Islamabad blames Kabul for allowing sanctuary for the TTP, as well as other groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP).
TTP attacks have increased sharply since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, and numbers highlight the increasing trend.
“Our data show that the TTP engaged in at least 600 attacks against, or clashes with, security forces in the past year alone. Its activity in 2025 so far already exceeds that seen in all of 2024,” a recent report by the US-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project said.
In the last few days, several attacks have killed more than two dozen Pakistani soldiers, including officers, with the latest such incident on October 8.
Regional powers – including China, Iran and Russia – have repeatedly urged the Taliban to eliminate the TTP and other armed groups operating from Afghanistan. That call was renewed at the Moscow Format consultation in early October, which was also attended by Muttaqi, the Taliban foreign minister.
Abdul Basit, a scholar of militancy and a research fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said he expects more diplomacy in the coming days, led by countries that have strong ties with both the Taliban and Pakistan, such as Gulf nations or China.
“I think it is plausible that Islamabad and Kabul will hold another round of meetings in some third country to re-engage in dialogue, but I believe that tensions will continue to simmer, sometimes going up or sometimes going down. We certainly cannot rule out another round of hostilities at the border,” he told Al Jazeera.
Seema Ilahi Baloch, a former Pakistani ambassador who has been involved in informal Pakistan-Afghanistan talks in the past, said that Islamabad had so far failed to persuade the Taliban to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for attacks against Pakistan.
“Both sides must realise that such conflicts undermine bilateral cooperation and negatively impact regional stability,” she said. “China, which has influence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, can be the interlocutor to mend fences between the two through diplomacy,” she added.
Islamabad’s new normal?
Still, analysts say it is becoming increasingly difficult for Pakistan’s officials to ignore the mounting death toll in the country from attacks that Islamabad alleges have originated in Afghanistan.
The Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), an Islamabad-based think tank, put the number of deaths of Pakistan’s security personnel at more than 2,400 in the first three quarters of this year, which is on track to become the deadliest year in a decade.
Basit said that Islamabad is trying to define a new normal in which any attack believed to have originated in Afghanistan – whether by the TTP or another group – will carry a cost for Kabul.
“Any attack which emanates from Afghanistan will be responded [to] with [the] same ferocity on their territory, with Pakistan implying that Afghan Taliban are facilitating such attacks in Pakistan, and thus are legitimate targets,” he said.
Basit acknowledged that Pakistan’s new approach appears similar to what New Delhi adopted against Islamabad after the April attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, but said there was a key difference. Regardless of the casualties on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border during the past weekend’s clashes, the military asymmetry between the two sides is significant, unlike the scenario between India and Pakistan.
He pointed to Pakistan’s ability to hit back against India’s attacks in May: Pakistan was able to shoot down several Indian jets in the process. The Taliban, however, though battle-hardened fighters who have a long history of repelling foreign powers, do not have the equipment and training that Pakistan’s professional army does. “There is a difference,” Basit said.
Aamer Raza, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Peshawar, said there was a growing feeling within Pakistani policy circles that patience with Afghanistan was wearing thin in the Pakistani establishment.
“Although some engagement is inevitable, major breakthroughs shouldn’t immediately be expected. With Pakistan’s clear superiority in air and projectile warfare, even in the last clashes, it could have inflicted greater damage on Afghanistan, but it largely refrained,” he told Al Jazeera.
After the weekend clashes, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for the first time, also questioned the legitimacy of the Taliban government itself, even though Islamabad was the movement’s chief patron for a quarter of a century.
Pakistan demanded “concrete and verifiable actions against these terrorist elements by the Taliban regime” and urged a more inclusive government. “We also hope that one day, the Afghan people would be emancipated, and they would be governed by a true representative government,” the statement read.
Baloch, the diplomat, downplayed that language, suggesting that Islamabad was merely calling for elections in Afghanistan.
Basit, however, argued that the wording was significant. “This language of the statement also hints that Pakistan might be open to the idea of throwing its support behind anti-Taliban groups if the current regime continues to ignore Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns,” he said.
The New Delhi factor
The weekend’s clashes also coincided with Muttaqi’s first visit to India. He is, in fact, the first senior Taliban leader to travel to New Delhi since the group took control of Afghanistan four years ago.
Muttaqi received a temporary United Nations-sanctions exemption to travel for a week, from October 9 to 16, and met Indian Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar.
Kabul’s moves towards New Delhi also represent the culmination of months of diplomacy that Pakistan has watched closely.
From the mid-1990s until a few years ago, India viewed the Taliban as a proxy for Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, and accused the group and its allies of deadly attacks on its diplomatic missions in Afghanistan.
But since the group returned to power in Afghanistan, and amid rising Taliban-Pakistan tensions, India has engaged in a series of outreach efforts with Kabul’s new leaders, leading to Muttaqi’s visit.
Islamabad continues to allege that New Delhi is fomenting trouble in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, and that some groups are funded or supported by New Delhi from Afghan territory, charges that India has consistently rejected.
Now, with tensions on both its western and eastern fronts, Islamabad needs to stay cautious, said Baloch, the former ambassador.
“No country can afford to open war fronts on all its borders, and that goes for Pakistan also,” she said.
Meanwhile, some analysts have questioned Pakistan’s posture of neither accepting responsibility for last Thursday’s explosions in Afghanistan, nor denying a role.
This could damage Pakistan’s credibility if groups based in Afghanistan attack Pakistan again, suggested Fahad Nabeel, who leads the Islamabad-based research consultancy Geopolitical Insights.
“The main question will be why Pakistani officials did not claim responsibility for the past alleged strikes [in Afghanistan, in response to attacks in Pakistan]. If Pakistan merely uses the terrorism-threat narrative, critics will ask why it did not take such actions in the past decade,” Nabeel told Al Jazeera.
However, Nabeel said that he did not see major parallels between India’s response to the April attack and Pakistan’s recent approach towards the Taliban. “The only commonalities,” he said, lay in both India and Pakistan accusing its neighbours, Pakistan and Afghanistan, of not doing enough to stop UN-sanctioned individuals and groups from using their soil to attack others.
Singapore-based Basit said that Pakistan’s air strikes during Muttaqi’s visit were likely intended to send a message: that “Islamabad will not hesitate to use force if it perceives collusion between Kabul and New Delhi to undermine Pakistani security”.
However, like Baloch, Basit also acknowledged the limits of that posture. “No country can afford a two-front war,” he said.
Basit also said that bigger questions about Islamabad’s approach remained unanswered.
“What really is the end game here?” he asked.
“Are these strikes going to change the calculus of [the] Afghan Taliban to pushing them into action against the TTP, or will it drive them to forge a closer nexus with [the] TTP?” he asked.
“When you use force, you are using it to achieve [a] certain goal, and the question is, what does Pakistan want to achieve with these air strikes?”
Imagine, if you will, a scenario in which the newly crowned NFL sack king Myles Garrett is tasked with teaching the Muppets about the fundamentals of football, and you’re maybe about a quarter of the way toward appreciating the league’s almost cartoonish dominance over what remains of the American monoculture. Picture the 6’ 4”, 272-pound collection of fast-twitch muscle fibers bearing down on Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his eternally harried lab assistant, Beaker, in a hands-on demonstration of the ouchiest branch of Newtonian physics—MEEP!—and you’ve got yourself an analogy that’s been all done up in distressed felt and crushed ping pong balls.
It ends badly for all of Kermit’s showbiz pals. A blindside hit reduces Fozzie Bear to a muddied scrap of area rug, while whatever’s left of Miss Piggy will get hosed off Garrett’s cleats and redirected to the Wilson plant in Ada, Ohio. Up in the balcony, even Statler and Waldorf have stopped cracking wise. Scooter had a family!
If entertainment fare has long been shut out of the annual list of America’s biggest TV and TV-adjacent events—the last time a scripted show found a toehold among the top 100 was in 2019, when the series finale of The Big Bang Theory scared up 18.5 million viewers—the NFL also has made short work of much of its sports competition. Having accounted for 83 of the most-watched transmissions in 2025, the Shield put up its second-best numbers on the books, trailing only its run from two years ago, when it nearly ran the table with 93 entries. (A surging college game helped put this year’s football tally at an even 90 entries.)
For all that, the real hero of the 2025 list may well be Nielsen. As much as the NFL kicked off the season by suggesting that the audience for such tentpole events as the Super Bowl and the Thanksgiving Day slate have been undercounted, an upgrade of the company’s methodology—especially as it pertains to an expanded out-of-home sample—has gone a long way toward putting such concerns on pause. (Executives have been complaining about Nielsen practically since it began its 75-year reign as the currency czar, but no pretender yet has managed to supplant it as the underwriter of the $70 billion-and-change TV ad market.)
On the day the jaw-dropping ratings for the Thanksgiving games were released, NFL EVP of media distribution Hans Schroeder gave Nielsen props for beefing up its OOH scrutiny, noting that the efforts to track these impressions in all U.S. TV markets helped “capture the viewership in a more accurate way.” CBS’ Chiefs-Cowboys broadcast averaged 57.23 million viewers, smashing the previous regular-season record by 36%. Strip away all the holiday co-viewing that took place across the nation and CBS’ Tryptophan Bowl turnout would have been closer to 35 million.
And while TV execs rarely make an effort to shout out Nielsen, Fox’s Mike Mulvihill wasn’t stinting in his praise. “Nielsen takes a lot of criticism in this business, but you have to give them credit for the fact that through their rollout of out-of-home measurement, the scorekeeping in this business has finally caught up to the reality,” Fox Sports’ president of insights and analytics told reporters during the post-Turkey Day media scrum. “Sports does have [the power] to bring us together and facilitate shared experience, and the numbers finally reflect the reality that’s been in place for many, many years, and it’s a welcome change.”
The impact of the new method of counting the house is perhaps best appreciated by looking back to the 2023 list. While last year’s top 100 was a bit of an outlier, thanks to a frenzied presidential election cycle, the 2023 tally is particularly instructive when you start digging into the back portion. The cutoff for our latest list was 17.39 million viewers, whereas the count from two years ago halted at 15.03 million viewers. Transpose the 2023 data with the current chart and the bottom quarter drops off into the void. In other words, the new-look Nielsen has helped recapture a sufficient volume of impressions that 27 of the broadcasts that made the cut two years ago wouldn’t have been eligible for inclusion in today’s ranking.
If the Nielsen data should go a long way toward ensuring that the NFL will continue to maintain most, if not all, of its legacy TV partnerships—during the post-Thanksgiving huddle, Schroeder made a point of crediting “the power … and reach of broadcast TV” for doing a lot of the heavy lifting—the streaming giants are an increasingly invasive species. Events that were exclusive to streaming platforms accounted for eight of the 100 items on the list, up from three in 2024, and nearly all the trad TV broadcasts were enhanced by a non-linear simulcast. (Peacock and other digital outlets now account for 11% of NBC’s Sunday Night Football deliveries, up from 5% just a few years ago.)
For all that, an argument can be made for the exclusion of at least one streaming event, as the stateside audience for Netflix’s presentation of the Sept. 13 Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford bout was determined without any input from Nielsen. Netflix’s self-reported deliveries are derived via a sort of mysterious alchemy, as the company’s results are a function of the marriage of its own in-house figures and estimates from VideoAmp. As there’s no way to audit these results, the Netflix numbers radiate a heady “trust me, bro” vibe. That said, gatekeeping kept last month’s mandible-shattering Jake Paul fiasco off the list, as Netflix declined to break out the fight’s U.S.-only numbers.
Drop the unverifiable boxing deliveries, and the NFL has bragging rights to 84 of the top 100 events on the list. That quibble aside, sports all but gobbled up the entire chart, as 95 of the items on the list were devoted to football, baseball, basketball, horseracing and boxing. Political events and news programming ran off with 16 of the top spots in 2024, but in the absence of a collar-grabbing quadrennial circus, only three Beltway spectacles carved out space on this year’s chart. The other two non-sports entries were NBC’s presentation of the 99th installment of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and ABC/Hulu’s staging of the Oscars.
As far as individual results are concerned, the humbled Kansas City Chiefs grabbed 18 spots on the 2025 list, eclipsing their dynasty-disrupting foes the Philadelphia Eagles (14) and the ever-popular Dallas Cowboys (13). Among the networks, Fox earned top marks with 26 appearances, edging NBC (23) and CBS (22), while Disney siblings ESPN and ABC combined to take 19 of the top slots. The NFL, meanwhile, drummed up 19 of the year’s 20 biggest audiences and 46 of the top 50.
Lastly, Major League Baseball staged a welcome return to the upper reaches of the list, as the final frame of Fox’s epic Dodgers-Blue Jays Fall Classic claimed the No. 25 slot. The power of a World Series Game 7 is hard to overstate, even when one of the teams involved has no stateside representation; by comparison, the 2024 Yankees-Dodgers showdown topped off at No. 84 with 18.15 million viewers. A seventh broadcast featuring the reps of the two largest media markets likely would have crashed the top 10, but New York’s farcical fifth-inning meltdown in Game 5 robbed Fox of a potential ratings bonanza.
As for the big-time sporting events that failed to secure a berth in 2025, the NBA Finals fell short despite drawing 16.61 million viewers with Game 7, leaving the league out of the winner’s circle for the sixth straight year. Women’s college basketball failed to repeat its top 100 performance of a year ago, although the men’s game returned to the fold care of CBS’ coverage of the Florida-Houston title tilt. The Kentucky Derby also stormed back onto the list after a three-year layoff, as nearly 18 million people in funny hats (including 959,000 streamers) cheered on Sovereignty’s muddy victory, a turnout enhanced by Nielsen’s OOH upgrade.
Lastly, 2025 saw a rare loss for a Super Bowl lead-out, as Fox’s broadcast of the Season 3 premiere of the Rob Lowe-helmed game show The Floor served up a record-low 13.94 million viewers, this despite the 127.71 million sets of eyeballs that were in place during Philly’s big win over KC. While nothing will ever unseat NBC’s remarkable 1996 showing—the one-hour episode of Friends that aired immediately after Super Bowl XXX notched a now-unthinkable 52.93 million viewers—as the keeper of the Muppets flame, ABC could put up some big numbers in 2027 if they were to give Kermit & Co. the coveted post-Super Bowl LXI slot.
Throw a rampaging Myles Garrett into the mix, and ABC might even have a shot at beating its most recent Super Sunday mark, a special installment of Grey’s Anatomy that drew 37.8 million viewers in 2006 after the Steelers topped the Seahawks in Detroit. Bear in mind that Pittsburgh’s victory “only” delivered 90.75 million viewers; given the new Nielsen currency and the league’s unwavering expansionist tendencies, we’ll likely never again see an NFL championship game dip below the 100 million mark.
For anyone out there still trying to compete with the NFL for the hearts and minds of the American consumer, the only valid response to the league’s latest showing can be summed up in a single interjection: MEEP!
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As Venezuela enters the post-Nicolas Maduro era, former officials and regional experts warn the country may be facing not a democratic transition, but a period of deeper instability and internal conflict between possible successors that some warn could be even worse than Maduro.
Marshall Billingslea, the former assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes in the U.S. Treasury Department, said Maduro’s removal has exposed a fractured system that was never held together by a single strongman, but by competing criminal power centers now moving independently.
“The cartel has always been a loose association, with each of the mafia bosses having their own centers of gravity,” Billingslea said. “Maduro was the frontman, but he didn’t exercise total control. Now we’re seeing each of those centers spinning off on their own.”
MADURO’S SON GIVES ‘UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT’ TO NEWLY SWORN IN INTERIM VENEZUELA PRESIDENT
U.S. State Department “wanted” posters show Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López (left) and senior regime figure Diosdado Cabello, both accused by U.S. authorities of corruption and links to drug trafficking networks. (U.S. State Department )
Billingslea said the capture of Cilia Flores, Maduro’s wife, was as consequential as Maduro’s removal itself.
“The capture of Cilia Flores is a particularly big deal because she was the brains behind the operation and the one who cleared out potential rivals,” he said. “Her removal is equally significant.”
TRUMP ISSUES DIRECT WARNING TO VENEZUELA’S NEW LEADER DELCY RODRÍGUEZ FOLLOWING MADURO CAPTURE
Billingslea outlined what he described as five competing power centers, four within the regime and one outside it. “The removal of Maduro, and particularly the removal of Cilia Flores, leaves a huge power vacuum in the cartel,” he said. “We haven’t yet reached a new equilibrium here.”
In the interim, he foresees a high risk of internal power struggles, violence and further repression as rival factions maneuver to secure control in a post-Maduro Venezuela. But he notes that the Trump administration anticipates this and is executing a clear-eyed strategy to first secure U.S. core interests, followed by the gradual restoration of democracy, all without needing American “boots on the ground.”
TRUMP VOWS US ‘IN CHARGE’ OF VENEZUELA AS HE REVEALS IF HE’S SPOKEN TO DELCY RODRÍGUEZ
Delcy Rodríguez takes over, but power remains contested
Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s longtime vice president, was quickly installed as interim leader. But her rise has done little to reassure Venezuelans or international observers that meaningful change is coming.
Rodríguez is deeply embedded in the Maduro system and has long played a central role in overseeing Venezuela’s internal intelligence and security apparatus. According to regional reporting, her focus since taking office has been consolidating control within those institutions rather than signaling political reform.
Former U.S. and regional officials say Delcy Rodríguez’s rise has revived long-standing questions about who truly influences her decisions as she moves to consolidate power.
Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez addresses the media in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 10, 2025. (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)
Those officials point to Rodríguez’s deep ties with Cuban intelligence, which helped build and operate Venezuela’s internal security and surveillance apparatus over the past two decades. Cuban operatives played a central role in shaping how the regime monitored dissent and protected senior leadership, embedding themselves inside Venezuela’s intelligence services.
At the same time, former officials say Rodríguez appears to be testing cooperation with Washington, creating uncertainty over how much leverage the United States actually holds. Some view her limited engagement with U.S. demands as tactical, aimed at buying time while she works to secure loyalty inside the regime and neutralize rival factions.
A former Venezuelan official previously told Fox News Digital that Rodríguez “hates the West” and represents continuity with the Maduro regime, not a break from it.
KRISTI NOEM DELIVERS TRUMP’S ULTIMATUM TO VENEZUELA’S VICE PRESIDENT FOLLOWING MADURO CAPTURE OPERATION
A U.S. State Department “wanted” poster for senior Venezuelan regime figure Diosdado Cabello Rondon, whom U.S. authorities have accused of ties to narcotics trafficking and narco-terrorism (U.S. State Department )
Cabello mobilizes loyalists
Diosdado Cabello, one of the most feared figures in the country, has emerged as a central player in the post-Maduro scramble for control.
Cabello, who wields influence over the ruling party and interior security, has been rallying armed colectivos and loyalist groups. Those groups have been active in the streets, detaining opponents and reinforcing regime authority through intimidation.
Sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for corruption and alleged ties to drug-trafficking networks, Cabello is widely viewed as a figure capable of consolidating power through force rather than institutions.
Jorge Rodríguez holds the levers of control
Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly and brother of Delcy Rodríguez, remains one of the regime’s most important political operators.
Rodríguez has served as a key strategist for Maduro, overseeing communications, elections and internal coordination. Recent reporting indicates he continues to work closely with his sister to maintain control over intelligence and security structures, reinforcing the regime’s grip despite Maduro’s removal.
Experts say Rodríguez could play a central role in shaping any managed transition that preserves the system Maduro built.
TRUMP’S VENEZUELA STRIKE SPARKS CONSTITUTIONAL CLASH AS MADURO IS HAULED INTO US
U.S. State Department “wanted” posters show Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López accused by U.S. authorities of conspiracy to distribute cocaine on board an aircraft registered in the U.S.
Padrino López
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, long considered the backbone of Maduro’s survival, remains a critical figure as well.
While Padrino López has not publicly positioned himself as a successor, analysts note that the armed forces are no longer unified behind a single leader. Senior generals are split across competing factions, raising the risk of internal clashes or a shift toward overt military rule if civilian authority weakens further.
Beyond the power struggle among regime elites, Venezuela faces a broader danger.
Large parts of the country are already influenced by criminal syndicates and armed groups. As centralized authority weakens, those actors could exploit the vacuum, expanding control over territory and smuggling routes.
Experts warned that an uncontrolled collapse could unleash forces more violent and less predictable than Maduro’s centralized repression, and the events unfolding now suggest that risk is growing.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado waves a national flag during a protest called by the opposition on the eve of the presidential inauguration, in Caracas on Jan. 9, 2025. (Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)
Outside the regime, opposition leader María Corina Machado remains the most popular political figure among Venezuelan voters. But popularity alone may not be enough to translate into power.
Machado lacks control over security forces, intelligence agencies or armed groups. As repression intensifies and rival factions maneuver, her ability to convert public support into political authority remains uncertain.
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Police patrol in La Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that President Nicolás Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Maduro’s fall, analysts say, did not dismantle Venezuela’s power structure. It fractured it.
With armed loyalists in the streets, rival factions competing behind the scenes, and an interim leader struggling to assert authority, Venezuela now faces a dangerous period in which the aftermath of Maduro’s rule could prove more chaotic — and potentially more brutal — than what came before, experts say. For Venezuelans, the question is no longer whether Maduro is gone, but whether anything that replaces him will be better.
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The European Commission has announced it is looking into cases of sexually suggestive and explicit images of young girls generated by Grok, the AI chatbot integrated into social media platform X, following the introduction of a paid feature known as “Spicy Mode” last summer.
“I can confirm from this podium that the Commission is also very seriously looking into this matter,” a Commission spokesperson told journalists in Brussels on Monday.
“This is not ‘spicy’. This is illegal. This is appalling. This is disgusting. This has no place in Europe.”
On Sunday, in response to growing anger and alarm at the images, the social media platform said the images had been removed from the platform and that the users involved had been banned.
“We take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary,” the X Safety account posted.
Similar investigations have been opened in France, Malaysia and India.
The European Commission also referenced an episode last November in which Grok generated Holocaust denial content. The Commission said it had sent a request for information under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), and that it is now analysing the response.
In December, X was fined €120 million under the DSA over its handling of account verification check marks and its advertising policy.
“I think X is very well aware that we are very serious about DSA enforcement. They will remember the fine that they have received from us,” said the EU Commission spokesperson.
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