On January 16, 2022, the Venezuelan Army launched Operation Bolivarian Shield 22, aimed at rooting out Colombian militant groups operating in Apure, Venezuela, bordering Colombia, following an incursion by the ELN into the town of La Gabarra, in Guasdualito, Apure State. Large quantities of weapons, including different IEDs, improvised fragmentation and anti-personnel mines, improvised launchers and high trajectory ammunition, as well as commercial explosives and detonators, and IED initiation systems were found and destroyed. In addition, numerous bases, IED workshops and drug-producing facilities and infrastructure was destroyed and burned in the course of the operation, dealing a hard blow to the militant groups collectively dubbed “TANCOL” by the Venezuelan government. The majority of the weapons documented were affiliated with the ELN and these same items are mostly known and have been documented in seizures and in attacks across neighboring Colombia.
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