Colombia’s ELN guerrilla group has ordered civilians in areas under its control to stay home for three days starting on Sunday, while it carries out military exercises in response to “intervention” threats from Donald Trump.

Trump said earlier this month any country that produces cocaine and sells it to the United States was “subject to attack”.

The ELN, the oldest surviving guerrilla group in the Americas, controls key drug-producing regions of Colombia and vowed on Friday to fight for the country’s “defense” in the face of Trump’s “threats of imperialist intervention”.

It urged civilians in areas it controls to stay indoors for 72 hours starting 6am on Sunday.

“It is necessary for civilians not to mix with fighters to avoid accidents,” the group said in a statement.

Tensions in the surrounding region have grown in recent months, as the US has ramped up pressure on Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro, putting a $50m bounty on his head and ordering a massive military buildup in the Caribbean – as well as a series of deadly airstrikes on alleged narco vessels, killing more than 80 people.

With a force of about 5,800 combatants, the ELN – the Spanish acronym for National Liberation Army – is present in more than a fifth of Colombia’s 1,100-plus municipalities, according to the Insight Crime research center.

It has also built a growing presence in neighbouring Venezuela, where it is present in eight of the country’s 24 states, expanding its finances, territorial control and political influence, the thinktank found in a recent report.

“The growth of the ELN and the survival of the Maduro regime are now connected. So long as Maduro remains in power, the favored position that the ELN enjoys in Venezuela seems likely to continue. Similarly, the Maduro regime now has its survival, in part, linked to the growing strength of the ELN,” the report said.

The ELN has taken part in failed peace negotiations with Colombia’s last five governments.

Two years of peace talks with the government of incumbent Gustavo Petro – Colombia’s first ever leftist president – were suspended after the rebels intensified armed attacks in parts of the country.

While professing to be driven by leftist, nationalist ideology, the ELN is deeply involved in the drug trade and has become one of the region’s most powerful organized crime groups.

It vies for territory and control of lucrative coca plantations and trafficking routes with dissident fighters that refused to lay down arms when the FARC guerrilla army disarmed under a 2016 peace deal.

Colombia is the world’s top cocaine producer, according to the UN.