Post-Maduro Venezuela: Military backs VP Delcy Rodríguez as interim president; tells people to resume normal activities

Venezuela's military on Sunday said it recognised Delcy Rodriguez, deputy to ousted president Nicolas Maduro, as the country's acting leader, after US forces extracted the former head of state to face trial.Defense minister Vladimir Padrino issued a statement endorsing a Supreme Court ruling that appointed Rodriguez as acting president for 90 days, reported news agency AFP.

The head of Venezuela's military also urged the country's population to resume their normal activities, after US forces bombed the country and seized its leader Nicolas Maduro."I call on the people of Venezuela to resume their activities of all kinds, economic, work and education, in the coming days," Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said in a televised address.This comes hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that discussions of Venezuela holding elections following Nicolas Maduro's ouster were "premature". He said the Trump administration was focused on ensuring the remaining leadership in Caracas enacts policy changes.Asked how soon Venezuelan elections would be following Maduro's capture by US forces on Saturday, Rubio told NBC's "Meet the Press": "All of that, I think, is premature at this point."

"What we are focused on right now is all of the problems we had when Maduro was there. We still have those problems in terms of them needing to be addressed. We are going to give people an opportunity to address those challenges and those problems," he was quoted as saying by AFP.Trump announced on Saturday that US forces had carried out a “large-scale strike” in Venezuela, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, following pre-dawn attacks on Caracas that killed at least 40 people and triggered widespread panic across the capital.After reports of multiple explosions and low-flying aircraft, Venezuelan government forces deployed nationwide and the country entered a state of national emergency. Maduro and his wife have now been indicted in New York on terrorism and drug charges, with Trump accusing Maduro of running a “narco terrorist organisation.”A photo released by Trump on his social media platform Truth Social showed Maduro in handcuffs, wearing a blacked-out mask.Attorney General Pam Bondi posted an unsealed indictment charging Maduro with narco-terrorism, cocaine importation conspiracies, and possession of machine guns, offences that carry severe prison sentences when combined with drug trafficking charges.