BOGOTA – Left-wing guerrillas have increased their attacks against police installations in cocaine-producing areas of southern Colombia, killing eight officers yesterday and bringing this month’s death toll to 55.
President Juan Manuel Santos took office last month, promising to keep up pressure on the drug-running insurgents. But his government has got off to a difficult start in the provinces of Narino and Putumayo, where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) has gone on the offensive.
The provinces bordering Ecuador are key to the cocaine-smuggling operations that fund Colombia’s decades-old insurgency. Yesterday, authorities said the rebels used missiles made from cooking gas cylinders stuffed with explosives to blast a police station near the town of San Miguel, Putumayo.
Fifty-five police, soldiers and guerrilla fighters have been killed this month as the rebels launch raids meant to show they are still a threat after an eight-year US-backed security push under the previous president, Alvaro Uribe.
Colombians have come to expect a rise in rebel violence at times of government transitions. But the recent hit-and-run assaults are a far cry from past sieges in which whole towns were taken, bridges destroyed and dozens of people kidnapped.
Narino and Putumayo have a large police presence as part of the government’s anti-narcotics effort. – (Reuters)