The Colombian capital remained tense tonight, with downtown streets deserted and police on high alert, after a bomb hidden on a bicycle blew up the day before, killing five and injuring 21.
Another booby-trapped bicycle and a bomb hidden in a supermarket cart were discovered and defused by police before they exploded.
The explosion occurred yesterday in a restaurant popular with police officers in the southern part of the capital, police General Jorge Linares Mendez said.
No one had claimed responsibility for the blast but security forces attributed them to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Intelligence sources also blamed the FARC for destroying electricity towers near Bogota over the last week, and blowing up a valve on a dam that holds water for the capital last Sunday.
"These are not revolutionary acts, they are against civilians. They are terrorist acts. And, I repeat, acts which the international community and Colombians reject," President Andres Pastrana said today.
"The FARC must clarify if this is how they want to be known to the world," said Mr Pastrana, demanding to know if the rebel group, which just days ago committed to negotiating cease-fire, was mocking him.
On January 20th, after days of intense diplomacy, with the army set to invade a rebel safe haven in the south, Mr Pastrana and the FARC brought their three-year-old peace process back from the brink of collapse, signing a deal committing to continued talks and a cease-fire by April 7th.
But military and police sources also blamed the FARC for attacks yesterday in three Colombian towns that left one dead and two wounded.
AFP