Some 3,000 soldiers and state police have launched a major offensive against leftist rebels in an attempt to gain control of a suburb Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city.
Some twenty five people have been reported killed and 20 have been injured so far. The operation, called Operation Orion was ordered on Wednesday by the Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Humanitarian and military sources said civilians were among the dead.
Government forces have cordoned off Comuna 13, a sprawling community of 100,000 people in Medellin, that for months has been a battleground between leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries.
"We have resumed operation Orion aimed at regaining control of Comuna 13 and flush the guerrillas out of there dead or alive," operation commander General Carlos Alberto Ospira told reporters yesterday after a brief lull in the fighting.
Military sources said they captured 48 rebels and freed a businessman and a female university student whom the guerrillas had been keeping hostage.
Those arrested are suspected of belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which has been locked in a 38-year civil war that has killed more than 200,000 people.
Hundreds of local inhabitants are fleeing Comuna 13 seeking shelter in other parts of the city. Military sources said some guerrillas were mixing in with the refugees to slip through military cordon undetected.
AFP