ON May 3, armed combatants arrived from Colombia to take prisoner or assassinate leading figures of Venezuela’s left-wing political leadership, including the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro.

Launched from Colombian coastlines regularly patrolled by the Colombian navy and close to a US military and navy base, the mercenaries invaded Venezuela with heavy weaponry and satellite technology — such satellite technology facilitates secure communication with intelligence operatives, employed systematically by the US and Colombia in their counterinsurgency operations against left-wing Colombian rebels.

According to one of the leaders of the mercenary group, Jordan Goudreau, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the owner of a private “security” company in Florida — where scores of wealthy right-wing Venezuelans have emigrated — the invading group numbered around 60 combatants and organised itself inside Colombia, although there were certainly many more people involved than this. The group also included, by the admission of Goudreau, former members of US Special Forces.