TERRORISTS have attacked a military base controlled by troops loyal to Venezuela’s government, a senior official said.

Diosdado Cabello said troops acted quickly to control the situation at the Paramacay base and several were arrested.

The announcement came after a small group of men dressed in military fatigues, some armed with assault rifles, released a video declaring themselves in rebellion in Carabobo state.

In the video a man identifying himself as Captain Juan Caguaripano said any unit refusing to go along with its call for rebellion would be a military target.

For months the South American country has been in the throes of a political crisis with protests that have left more than 100 dead, 2000 wounded and 500 detained.

On Saturday prominent opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was returned home to serve his sentence under house arrest, days after being hauled back to prison in the middle of the night in a move that drew international condemnation.

The activist’s wife Lilian Tintori said she and her husband remained committed to achieving “peace and freedom for Venezuela”.

Lopez was released from prison on July 8 and placed under house arrest after serving three years of a 13-year sentence on charges of inciting violence at opposition rallies. Many human rights groups considered him a political prisoner.

But he was taken back into custody last Tuesday along with former Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma in what many believed was a renewed crackdown on the opposition following the election of delegates to a new, all-powerful constitutional assembly charged with overhauling the nation’s charter.

That assembly voted unanimously on Saturday to remove Venezuela’s chief prosecutor, a long-time government loyalist who broke with President Nicolas Maduro in April. Cries of “traitor” and “justice” erupted during the vote to oust Luisa Ortega from her post.

Delegates said they were acting in response to a ruling by the government-stacked Supreme Court that banned Ortega from leaving the country.