Venezuela has arrested at at least 77 suspected Colombian paramilitary members who were allegedly training to strike against President Hugo Chavez's government, he said on Sunday. Opposition leaders said the raids were a government-hatched plan meant to divert attention from their presidential recall effort.

Chavez said 53 Colombian paramilitary members were arrested in a raid on a farm early on Sunday, and another 24 paramilitary recruits were caught after fleeing into the countryside. However, one of those arrested said the detained men did not belong to any organised right-wing Colombian paramilitary group.

In his weekly Hello President radio and television broadcast, Chavez said federal agents were uncovering additional clues and searching for more suspected paramilitary members. He said the arrests were proof of a conspiracy against the government of this leading oil-producing nation involving Cuban and Venezuelan exiles in Florida and neighbouring Colombia.

The allegations come at a time when an opposition petition campaign to force a recall election against Chavez is entering a decisive phase.

Chavez claimed that the plot was backed by Venezuela's mostly pro-opposition news media, adding that the raids had "eliminated the seed of a terrorist group". "Now they are importing terrorists," Chavez said of his opponents, "and they are looking for people here."

Henrique Capriles, a mayor who supports the opposition, rejected Chavez's allegations that the captured men were being financed by opposition. He called the raids "a show organised by the government" to turn attention away from efforts to hold a presidential recall vote. Capriles said municipal police were the first to discover the alleged paramilitaries, and then tipped off federal agents.

In Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe praised Venezuela for the arrests.

"What we need is that the governments of both neighbouring countries help each other capture criminals from Colombia, guerrillas or paramilitaries operating over there," Uribe said.

A right-wing Colombian paramilitary leader, Salvador Mancuso, denied his United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia were involved. "We deny the accusations against us by Venezuelan leaders," Mancuso told Colombia's RCN television.

Mancuso claimed that Chavez was working with Colombia's two largest leftist rebel groups. Chavez has denied this allegation, which was also raised in a recent US State Department report on terrorism.

The leftist Chavez – who was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup – said he had ordered police to capture "each and every one of the terrorists" involved in the alleged plot.

Dissident Venezuelan military officers were training the young men at a ranch located 15 kms south of Caracas, the capital, Miguel Rodriguez Torres, head of Venezuela's DISIP secret police, told state television. He said two more suspected paramilitary training centres could exist.

Chavez claimed the ranch in the El Hatillo municipality was owned by a Cuban national, Roberto Alonso, with links to Venezuelan and Cuban exiles. He said Alonso also had ties to the Democratic Coordinator, the opposition coalition pushing for the recall vote.

"There are people in the United States who keep thinking how to start a war in Venezuela so that they can justify an invasion," Chavez said.

Chavez has frequently claimed that Venezuela's opposition, including a number of military officers who supported the April 2002 coup, have conspired to overthrow his government, with Washington's backing. The United States rejects the charges.

Daniel Fonseca, a neighbour living near the farm where the paramilitaries were collared, said the men had been at the farm for about 15 days.

"I saw them twice when riding (my) horses," Fonseca said. "They were dressed as civilians and I saw some of them with 9mm pistols."

An AP reporter saw abundant amounts of food, provisions, clothes and about one hundred thin mattresses at the rustic house where the alleged paramilitary members were captured.