Venezuela's Supreme Court attacked with grenade from police helicopter

A police helicopter strafed on Venezuela's Supreme Court building and a government ministry with grenades in a "terror attack" against the government, President Nicolas Maduro said in a speech Tuesday.

The aircraft fired 15 shots at the interior ministry, where scores of people were at a social event, and dropped four grenades on the court, where judges were meeting, officials said.

Videos circulated on social media showed a man piloting the helicopter while holding a banner that read “Liberty. Article 350”, in reference to an article in the Venezuelan constitution that allows for citizens to declare themselves in civil disobedience in front of “any regime that runs counter to democratic guarantees or undermines human rights”.

The incident took place just hours after Maduro warned that he and his supporters would be willing to take up arms if his government was toppled by “undemocratic forces”.

"I have activated the entire armed forces to defend the peace," he said in remarks delivered from the Miraflores presidential palace.

Maduro said he has put the military on alert to respond to the alleged assault.

"Sooner or later, we are going to capture that helicopter and those that carried out this terror attack," he declared.

He did not say when the alleged attack is supposed to have occurred, and said no one was injured. He added that one of the grenades failed to detonate.

The beleaguered president, who for weeks has been thundering about alleged coup plots against him, said the aircraft was flown by a pilot who worked for his former interior and justice minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres, from whom he is now estranged.

The 54-year-old socialist leader has faced three months of protests from opposition leaders who decry him as a dictator who has wrecked a once-prosperous economy. There has been growing dissent too from within government and the security forces.

At least 75 people have died, and hundreds more been injured and arrested, in the anti-government unrest since April.

Demonstrators are demanding general elections, measures to alleviate a brutal economic crisis, freedom for hundreds of jailed opposition activists, and independence for the opposition-controlled National Assembly legislature.