The strategic operational commander of the FANB, Domingo Hernandez Larez, informed on Twitter that the units of engineers and combat sappers are scanning every inch of the territory in search of mines and handmade devices installed by paramilitary groups coming from Colombia.
“The planting of traps and explosives is a custom developed in the neighboring country by drug traffickers, and which they have silently tried to implant in the cross-border axis; the FANB has deployed hundreds of explosives experts in a daily task to eradicate the Tancol invasion (armed Colombian drug-trafficking terrorists)”, he specified.
Hernandez Larez denounced that the lack of control and indifference of the Colombian security agencies allows these criminal gangs to cross the border into Venezuela “in a sort of silent invasion”.
Among the most recent actions carried out against these groups, the FANB located two structures in the forest reserve of San Camilo, in the Paez municipality of Apure state, with 12 explosive devices, 100 kilograms of gunpowder, communications equipment, ammunition and uniforms, among other equipment.
Since the beginning of the year, the Venezuelan armed forces intensified patrolling actions in the cross-border axis in order to neutralize these criminal gangs and dismantle illegal camps used as operational bases.
According to the military high command, more than 10 thousand FANB troops remain deployed in Apure to guarantee Venezuela’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
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