Several people, including two police officers, were killed in an operation to capture a Venezuelan helicopter pilot who dropped grenades on the Supreme Court last year during anti-government protests, the interior ministry said Monday.

A ministry statement said members of a "terrorist cell" were killed, and five were captured in the operation, but did not say whether the pilot, Oscar Perez, was among the dead or detained.

Perez said in a video released on Twitter earlier Monday that he and his companions were surrounded and pinned down by police marksmen at a location on the outskirts of Caracas.