Caracas: At least one explosion rocked a military event where Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was giving a speech on Saturday and the government said it was a failed assassination attempt involving drones carrying explosives.
Maduro said "everything points" to a right-wing plot that initial investigation suggested was linked to Colombia and the US state of Florida, where many Venezuelan exiles live.
Venezuela's government said on Sunday that six people had been detained.
State television on Saturday evening showed the socialist leader appearing startled by what seemed to be an explosion while he was giving a speech in Caracas. Seconds later, the footage panned to hundreds of soldiers chaotically scurrying out of formation.
One of the six suspects detained had a pending arrest warrant for a 2017 attack on a military base, and a second had been arrested in 2014 for participating in anti-government street protests, interior minister Nestor Reverol said.
Information minister Jorge Rodriguez said drones loaded with explosives detonated close to the military event in Caracas. A Venezuelan who was visiting family nearby told Reuters she heard two explosions.
Maduro, a leftist who replaced President Hugo Chavez after his death in 2013, was unharmed but Rodriguez said seven National Guard soldiers were injured.
"This was an assassination attempt, they tried to assassinate me," Maduro said in a later televised address.
A shadowy and little-known group called the National Movement of Soldiers with T-Shirts, which claimed responsibility for the incident, sent a statement wishing a speedy recovery for seven wounded soldiers but vowed further resistance.
"We will not cease our struggle until we achieve the restoration of the constitution and of democracy," read the statement.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the involvement of the group, which in the past has said it is linked to anti-government street protesters known as "The Resistance".
Maduro won a new six-year term in May but his main rivals disavowed the election and alleged massive irregularities.
Venezuela is suffering under the fifth year of a severe economic crisis that has sparked malnutrition, hyperinflation and mass emigration.
Maduro named Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos as being behind the attack, but gave no evidence to back that up. "The name of Juan Manuel Santos is behind this attack... the initial investigations point to Bogota," he said.
A Colombian government source said Maduro's allegation was "absurd" and that Santos was celebrating his granddaughter's baptism on Saturday. "He is not thinking of anything else, least of all bringing down foreign governments," the source said.
Maduro said initial investigations indicated that "several of those intellectually responsible and the financiers of this attack live in the US, in the state of Florida". He called on US President Donald Trump to "fight these terrorist groups".
Opposition critics accuse Maduro of fabricating or exaggerating security incidents to distract from hyperinflation and Soviet-style product shortages.
US national security advisor John Bolton told Fox News in an interview on Sunday that the US was not involved in the blast. Reuters
