Venezuelan Troops Trained Rebels to Fire Rockets, Colombia Says

Venezuelan soldiers loyal to embattled President Nicolas Maduro have trained members of South America’s most dangerous guerrilla force to use heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles, according to Colombian authorities.

National Liberation Army fighters were instructed in how to use the Russian-manufactured IGLA surface-to-air missile system, according to General Luis Navarro, Colombia’s top-ranking soldier. The Marxist force known as the ELN has long used Venezuelan territory as a refuge and has a close ideological affinity with Maduro’s socialist government, which the U.S. is trying to topple.

Colombia’s intelligence services don’t know whether the ELN actually has acquired its own missile launchers, nor do they know whether the training was organized by a faction within Venezuela’s military or sanctioned at the highest levels in Caracas. The ELN received training clandestinely rather than at Venezuelan army bases, Navarro said …. https://www.bloomberg.com