Venezuelan special forces patrolling the border with Colombia to avoid incursion of COlombian paramilitary violence. Photo: Twitter / @TVFANB.
Venezuela has announced the arrest of 62 members of terrorist groups of Colombian origin since September 2021.
“We are pleased to reveal that since September 2021, 62 members of TANCOL [an acronym used by the Venezuelan government to refer to armed drug-trafficking Colombian terrorists] have been arrested in 16 operations,” the Venezuelan Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, announced this Thursday, February 10.
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According to Saab, of the 62 people apprehended in the last five months, 46 were captured in Apure state and nine in Táchira, which are the two states of Venezuela bordering Colombia, while seven were detained in Bolívar state, near the Brazilian border.
In addition, he has confirmed that Venezuelan authorities “will not allow Venezuela to become Colombianized” and has asserted that they will not “allow these criminal groups to advance in any way, which we must pursue, sanction, and punish.”
“In recent weeks, camps and laboratories have been deactivated and numerous arrests have been made to eradicate and expel Colombia’s armed drug-trafficking terrorist groups from national territory,” he said.
Out of the 62 detainees, at least 35 were apprehended last weekend during four police operations carried out in the state of Apure. During the operations, the authorities seized cans of gasoline, long guns, a revolver, ammunition, and military clothing, many of which bore Colombian army paraphernalia.
Caracas accuses Bogotá of training “mercenaries and terrorists” to enter Venezuela in order to overthrow the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, who, given such a situation, has issued an orange alert several times on the Colombian-Venezuelan border and has deployed the military in the area to defend Venezuelan sovereignty.
In turn, the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) of Venezuela continues to reiterate that it will defend the country in the event of an attack by irregular paramilitaries or any other armed group coming from Colombia.
Featured image: Venezuelan special forces patrol the Colombian border to prevent the incursion of violent Colombian paramilitaries. Photo: Twitter / @TVFANB.
(HispanTV)
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/KW
