In the early hours of 21 March, the screech of combat aircraft overhead sounded the alarm that Venezuela has become a theatre in Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict. That morning, the Venezuelan military launched its first large-scale operation against a dissident faction of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) active inside Apure, a Venezuelan state hugging the Colombian frontier from the Andes in the west, along the Meta River, to the Orinoco River in the east. This action kickstarted a series of skirmishes that so far have reportedly claimed the lives of at least eight Venezuelan troops – with an unspecified number of additional losses reported last weekend – and nine alleged Colombian guerrillas. Relations between the two countries, already poor, have declined a notch further as leaders in Bogotá and Caracas swap insults and blame each other for the civilians displaced by the fighting. Meanwhile, both are dispatching reinforcements to border posts. The events in Apure have at times dominated headlines in both countries, drawing attention to what is happening more quietly along much of the border: Colombian guerrillas are penetrating deeper into Venezuelan territory.