Hundreds of political prisoners in Venezuela, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists, could soon be freed under an amnesty bill that the country's acting president announced on Friday. 

The move represents the latest concession Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez has made since the Jan. 3 capture of the country's former leader Nicolás Maduro by the U.S.

Rodriguez told a group of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the National Assembly, which is controlled by the ruling party, would promptly take up the bill, The Associated Press reported.

"May this law serve to heal the wounds left by the political confrontation fueled by violence and extremism," she said in the pre-taped televised event, according to the AP. "May it serve to redirect justice in our country, and may it serve to redirect coexistence among Venezuelans."

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Rodriguez said the amnesty law would cover the "entire period of political violence from 1999 to the present," and that those incarcerated for murder, drug trafficking, corruption or human rights violations would not qualify for relief, the AP reported.

In addition to the amnesty law, Rodriguez announced the shutdown of Venezuela's notorious El Helicoide prison in Caracas. Torture and other human rights abuses have been repeatedly documented at El Helicoide. The facility is set to be transformed into a sports, social and cultural center, according to reports.

Alfredo Romero, the head of Foro Penal, Venezuela’s leading prisoner rights organization, welcomed the legislation while expressing some skepticism.

"A General Amnesty is always welcome as long as its elements and conditions include all of civil society, without discrimination, that it does not become a blanket of impunity, and that it contributes to the dismantling of the repressive apparatus of political persecution," Romero said in a post on X.

VENEZUELA’S DELCY RODRÍGUEZ SNAPS AT WASHINGTON, DECLARES ‘ENOUGH’ OF US INFLUENCE

Relatives of some prisoners livestreamed Rodríguez’s speech on a phone as they gathered outside Helicoide, according to the AP.

Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado said in a statement that the moves were not made "voluntarily, but rather in response to pressure from the US government," the AP reported. She also reportedly noted that people detained for their political activities have been held for anywhere between a month and 23 years.

Foro Penal estimates there are 711 political prisoners held in Venezuela, 183 of whom have been sentenced, the AP reported. The outlet identified prominent members of the opposition who were detained after the 2024 election and remain in prison as former lawmaker Freddy Superlano, Machado’s lawyer Perkins Rocha and Juan Pablo Guanipa, a former governor and one of Machado’s closest allies.

On Friday evening, Venezuela released all known American citizens being held in the country.

"We are pleased to confirm the release by the interim authorities of all known U.S. citizens held in Venezuela," the U.S. embassy wrote on X. "Should you have information regarding any other U.S. citizens still detained, please contact American Citizen Services."

The Associated Press and Fox News Digital's Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

All known American citizens being held in Venezuela have been released, the U.S. Embassy said Friday evening. 

"We are pleased to confirm the release by the interim authorities of all known U.S. citizens held in Venezuela," the embassy wrote on X. "Should you have information regarding any other U.S. citizens still detained, please contact American Citizen Services."

No other details about the detainees were disclosed. Fox News Digital has reached out to the State Department. 

VENEZUELA’S DELCY RODRÍGUEZ SNAPS AT WASHINGTON, DECLARES ‘ENOUGH’ OF US INFLUENCE

Interim authorities have slowly released American detainees in the weeks since the U.S. capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

Both are being held in New York City on federal narco-terrorism charges. 

Earlier this month, Venezuela's interim government reported that 116 prisoners had been released, although only about 70 have been verified by the non-governmental organization Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón, according to Bloomberg.

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Earlier this month, the U.S. government announced a travel alert advising against travel to the country. Americans in the country were advised to depart immediately. 

"The security situation in Venezuela remains fluid. The U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, warns U.S. citizens not to travel to Venezuela, reiterating warnings against travel to Venezuela dating to 2019. As international flights have resumed, U.S. citizens in Venezuela should leave the country immediately."

The country is being run by Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro's former lieutenant. 

This week, Rodriguez signed a law overhauling the nation's oil sector, opening it to privatization and reversing a core policy of the socialist government that has ruled Venezuela for more than two decades.

On Jan. 10, President Donald Trump said American energy companies will invest $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s "rotting" oil infrastructure and push production to record levels.

Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez signed a law overhauling the nation's oil sector, opening it to privatization. The move reverses a core policy of the socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.

Rodriguez's policy shift, aimed at luring the foreign investors needed to rework the industry, comes less than one month after the U.S. captured former Venezuelan dictatorial leader Nicolás Maduro. The acting president, who served as Maduro's vice president prior to his capture, was facing pressure from the Trump administration, which was eyeing Venezuela's oil industry after imposing sanctions.

On Jan. 10, Trump hosted nearly two dozen top oil and gas executives at the White House. He said American energy companies will invest $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s "rotting" oil infrastructure and push production to record levels.

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That same day, Trump signed an executive order titled "Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People," blocking U.S. courts from seizing Venezuelan oil revenues held in American Treasury accounts.

"We’re talking about the future. We are talking about the country that we are going to give to our children," Rodríguez said of the reform, according to The Associated Press.

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The legislation ends the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA’s (PDVSA) monopoly over the production and sale of oil, as well as pricing, and allows private companies to take control, the AP reported. 

The new law states that a private company "will assume full management of the activities at its own expense, account, and risk, after demonstrating its financial and technical capacity through a business plan approved by" Venezuela's Oil Ministry, according to the AP. However, the outlet added that the law leaves control of hydrocarbon reserves operated by private companies with the government.

The law also allows for independent arbitration of disputes, ending the requirement that they be settled in Venezuelan courts controlled by the ruling party, according to the AP. Additionally, it modifies extraction taxes, setting a royalty cap rate of 30%, the AP reported.

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Rodriguez on Thursday, the AP reported. The call came just one day after the secretary explained to senators how the administration was planning to handle the sale of tens of millions of barrels of oil from Venezuela, the AP added. The outlet noted that Venezuela has the largest reserves of crude oil in the world.

"What we hope to do is transition to a mechanism that allows that to be sold in a normal way, a normal oil industry, not one dominated by cronies, not one dominated by graft and corruption," Rubio said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.

The secretary said that the U.S. would retain control of the oil revenue and that Venezuela would submit monthly budget outlining what they need funded. Subsequently, the funds will be moved into an account over which the U.S. will have oversight. He explained that the money would not be in the hands of the U.S., but Washington would control its disbursement to ensure it benefits the Venezuelan people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Venezuela opposition leader María Corina Machado argued that a successful democratic transition for her country would rapidly transform the nation's economy and reverse years of instability, reshaping the region’s political landscape.

Machado told the New York Post in an interview that such an outcome would define Trump’s foreign policy legacy, comparing it to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

"The legacy to the world is going to be huge," she explained. "You’re going to have a prosperous Venezuela and the region.… If you make a comparison in history, this would mean for the Americas as much as the fall of the Berlin Wall had for Europe. It’s equivalent.

"For the first time in history, you will have the Americas free of communism, dictatorship and narco-terrorism for the first time," she added.

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Machado said she intends to return to Venezuela soon to help drive a democratic transition despite the risks she faces under the country’s current government.

"I need to be there. I want to go back as soon as possible," Machado said.

Her planned return would come at a pivotal moment for Venezuela, as interim President Delcy Rodríguez leads a U.S.-backed transition following the removal of Nicolás Maduro.

Rodríguez, a close ally of Maduro, was sworn into office on Jan. 5 after U.S. forces ousted the ex-leader and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their compound in Caracas during a military operation.

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The duo were flown to New York and arraigned in federal court on multiple charges to which they pleaded not guilty.

Rodríguez has since been working with the White House and has spoken with President Donald Trump by phone.

Machado, however, voiced deep reservations about Rodríguez’s leadership, warning that the transition risks falling short without a broader break from the Maduro-era government.

"If Delcy Rodríguez stays, nothing truly changes," she told the Post. "There will be no rule of law, no trust, no stability. Venezuelans will not come home under a criminal."

Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez has appeared in U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intelligence files dating back several years and was labeled a "priority target" in 2022, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The documents show the DEA has intelligence files on Rodríguez going back to at least 2018, with her name appearing in multiple investigations across several U.S. and international field offices, though she has never been publicly accused of any criminal wrongdoing, the outlet reported.

The DEA did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

The "priority target" designation is used by the agency to focus investigative resources on individuals or organizations believed to play a significant role in major drug trafficking or money laundering operations affecting the United States, according to a 2008 DEA assessment.

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Rodríguez was formally sworn in as Venezuela's new leader on Jan. 5, just two days after U.S. forces extracted Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from their compound in Caracas in an early-morning military operation.

Maduro and Flores were taken into U.S. custody and flown to New York to face federal charges.

Maduro is charged with four counts: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine-guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine-guns and destructive devices. His wife is charged with three counts: cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine-guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine-guns and destructive devices.

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The White House has been working with Rodríguez in the weeks since Maduro was ousted. President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that he spoke with Rodríguez by phone and praised her as a "terrific person."

"We discussed a lot of things and I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela," he said.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado criticized Rodríguez as the Trump administration engages with the Maduro ally, arguing she does not represent the Venezuelan people.

"I want to insist on this: Delcy Rodríguez, yes, she’s a communist. She’s the main ally and representation of the Russian regime, the Chinese and the Iranians, but that’s not the Venezuelan people and that’s not the armed forces, as well," Machado said at a Heritage Foundation event on Friday.

"So I am profoundly, profoundly confident that we will have an orderly transition. This is a complex phase we are in right now. Some of the dirty work is being done by them," she added. "But then, the result of a stable transition will be a proud Venezuela who is going to be the best ally the United States has ever had in the Americas."

Latin America’s most powerful guerrilla groups are being urged to set aside years of bloody infighting and unite against President Donald Trump, according to reports.

The calls intensified in the wake of the arrest of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which has fueled fears among groups of a looming US-backed military intervention.

The recent call came from Colombia’s most wanted insurgent leader, Nestor Gregorio Vera, or "Ivan Mordisco," who released a video appeal to rival rebel factions, even despite years of brutal infighting, according to Reuters.

After decades of waging a bloody conflict over territory, drug routes and illegal economies, Vera said the time had come to put differences aside.

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"The shadow of the interventionist eagle looms over everyone equally. We urge you to put aside these differences," Vera said in the video, in which he appeared in camouflage flanked by two heavily armed fighters, Reuters said.

"Destiny is calling us to unite. We are not scattered forces, we are heirs to the same cause. Let us weave unity through action and forge the great insurgent bloc that will push back the enemies of the greater homeland," he added.

Among the groups singled out was the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s largest and most powerful guerrilla organization, which controls vast stretches of the 1,400-mile border between Colombia and Venezuela.

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"The war between Mordisco’s Farc dissidents and the ELN has been very, very bloody with a huge humanitarian impact," Jorge Mantilla, a security analyst and expert on Colombian guerrilla groups, told The Telegraph.

"So it calls my attention that, despite that, Mordisco is still saying, ‘stop this, let’s unite against our enemy, which is the U.S. and its intervention.’ So the cards are on the table."

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, also a former guerrilla fighter, had seized on the threat of a united insurgent front to call for a concerted effort to "remove" drug-trafficking guerrillas.

He said he had invited Venezuela’s new leader, Delcy Rodriguez, to cooperate in rooting out the armed groups.

But reports of a potential joint military operation involving the U.S., Colombia and Venezuela also raised the prospect that the ELN could finally be dismantled after more than 60 years of insurgency.

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As previously reported by Fox News Digital, guerrillas now operate along Venezuela’s 2,219-kilometer border with Colombia and control illegal mining near the Orinoco oil belt.

ELN has operated in Venezuela as a paramilitary force.

The group is believed to have around 6,000 fighters and controls key cocaine-producing regions, illegal mining operations and smuggling routes, per reports.

Following Maduro’s capture, the ELN vowed to fight to its "last drop of blood" against what it called the US empire.

"Today, the main goal of the ELN is not the takeover of power in Colombia or to rebuild a Colombian state, but more so to defend the Bolivarian Revolution, because they consider themselves a continental guerrilla [group] because their ideological inspiration is Latin Americanist, so they feel the struggle of Venezuela is their struggle," Mantilla told the Telegraph.

"I think ELN is, right now, in a very vulnerable position," Angelika Rettberg, political science professor at the University of the Andes in Colombia told the outlet.

"I also don’t think that even if they are able to build this unified organization, that would make them less likely to be hit by an eventual US attack," Rettberg said.

Interim Venezuela President Delcy Rodríguez announced Wednesday that her government will continue to release prisoners detained under the rule of former President Nicolás Maduro in an initiative she touted as a "new political moment," according to The Associated Press.

Her comments came just days after the interim government freed at least four U.S. citizens detained in Venezuela, marking the first known release of American prisoners since Maduro was ousted in a U.S. military operation earlier this month.

During her first press briefing since becoming acting leader, Rodríguez reportedly told journalists in Caracas that the process of releasing detainees "has not yet concluded," emphasizing that the effort to free those held under Maduro’s rule is ongoing. 

Rodriguez then promoted a "Venezuela that opens itself to a new political moment, that allows for ... political and ideological diversity," the AP reported.

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The outlet added that possibly 800 prisoners, including political leaders, soldiers and lawyers, are still being detained, citing Venezuelan human rights organization Foro Penal.

Rodriguez also claimed her government had already released 212 detainees, but human rights organizations have estimated lower figures, The AP added.  

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The Maduro ally insisted that the prisoner releases do not signal a break from the past and are not the direct result of U.S. pressure, but she credited the effort to the ousted president, The AP reported. She said Maduro oversaw the release of 194 detainees in December, noting that he did so because he "was thinking precisely about opening spaces for understanding, for coexistence, for tolerance," according to the outlet.

While Rodríguez has not provided a detailed framework for determining who will be released, she said decisions will be guided by an evaluation of "crimes related to the constitutional order," warning that "messages of hatred, intolerance, acts of violence will not be permitted."

The actual coordination of these releases will be handled by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. 

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he recently had a "great conversation" with Rodríguez, their first since Maduro was captured and flown to the U.S. to face drug-trafficking charges.  

"We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things," Trump said. "And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

As Iran faces escalating nationwide protests and rising verbal threats from the Trump administration, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered a pointed warning to the United States this week from an unusual platform — his Russian-language account on X — a move analysts say underscores Tehran’s alignment with Moscow as pressure mounts on the regime.

In a post dated Jan. 11, Khamenei wrote in Russian, "The United States today is miscalculating in its approach toward Iran." Hours later, he followed with a second message, also in Russian, warning that Americans had suffered defeat before because of "miscalculations" and would do so again because of "erroneous planning."

Ksenia Svetlova, executive director of the Regional Organization for Peace, Economy and Security (ROPES) and an associate fellow at Chatham House, said the language choice was telling, even if the execution was clumsy.

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"This is bad Russian," Svetlova told Fox News Digital. "It seems that it’s translated by Google Translate, not by a human being." Still, she said the use of Khamenei’s Russian-language account was no surprise given how closely Iran and Russia have aligned in recent years.

Khamenei’s warning came as Iran’s internal crisis continued to deepen. According to HRANA, a human rights organization tracking the unrest, at least 544 people have been killed in nationwide protests, with dozens of additional cases still under review. Opposition group NCRI has claimed the death toll is far higher — more than 3,000 — though exact figures remain difficult to verify amid widespread internet blackouts imposed by Iranian authorities.

President Donald Trump has led U.S. criticism in response to the rising death toll. In response to a question about whether Iran had crossed a red line, Trump responded by saying, "They're starting to, it looks like. And they seem to be some people killed that aren't supposed to be killed. These are violent. If you call them leaders, I don't know if they're leaders, or just they rule through violence. But we're looking at it very seriously," he said on Sunday aboard Air Force One. 

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"We’re looking at some very strong options," he added.

Iranian leaders have pushed back, accusing Washington of interference and warning that any U.S. military action would trigger retaliation against American forces and allies in the region.

At the same time, Tehran has signaled it wants to keep diplomatic back channels open. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Monday that communication between Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff remains active. Axios separately reported that Araghchi reached out to Witkoff over the weekend amid Trump’s warnings of possible military action.

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Despite those overtures, analysts say Khamenei’s Russian-language message reflects where Iran sees its most reliable strategic partner.

Russia has become a critical lifeline for Tehran, particularly as Moscow relies on Iranian-supplied drones and other military equipment for its war in Ukraine. That dependence, Svetlova said, means Iran’s internal instability could carry serious consequences for the Kremlin.

"I think that could be a dramatic effect, because they do depend on Iran — specifically military production, the drones and ballistic missiles," she said. "They need them to continue their war against Ukraine."

Yet the partnership has also fueled resentment inside Iran. Svetlova pointed to criticism following the 12-day war with Israel, when many Iranians accused Moscow of failing to come to Tehran’s aid.

"There was a lot of criticism in Iran against Russia that it did not come to help," she said. "It didn’t reach out. It didn’t do anything, basically."

Still, she said Russia has few alternatives as its global position narrows. With longtime allies weakened or toppled, such as Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, Moscow is increasingly reliant on Tehran — even as it remains largely silent about the protests rocking Iran.

Against that backdrop, Svetlova explained, Khamenei’s warning in Russian appears like a signal — to Washington and to Moscow — that Iran sees its confrontation with the United States as part of a shared front with President Vladimir Putin.