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Colombian Army Kills More Than 60
By ANDREW SELSKY
.c The Associated Press
"Infrared video reportedly taken from a military surveillance plane showed
the ghostly images of rebels caught in the open - some sprawled on the ground
and others attempting to run away. The video was shown on TV newscasts here.
The local resident said he saw more than 60 wounded rebels, some with their
legs blown off, being helped out of Juan Jose by fellow guerrillas. Others
carried away the bodies of dead rebels in body bags and hammocks."
<A HREF="aol://4344:30.L100dipl.336466.681183699"> 08/02: AOL News:
Colombian Army Kills More Than 60</A>
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Government troops pursued a battered guerrilla column
through the mountains Thursday after reportedly killing about 60 rebels in
one of the military's biggest battlefield victories in years.
Colombian commanders were jubilant at how a combined air and ground assault
had blunted a rebel attack in the village of Juan Jose and then decimated the
insurgents.
``The country has seen an army on the offensive, an army chasing and battling
these bandits,'' Gen. Enrique Mora, the commander of the army, told reporters
Wednesday evening.
Witnesses said the rebels on Tuesday had been attacking an army outpost in
Juan Jose, 250 miles northwest of Bogota, when U.S.-made Blackhawk
helicopters came to the rescue, sweeping over the town and unleashing a
barrage of rockets and machine-gun fire.
``When the helicopters began firing from above, the guerrillas ran around
like mad, and then ran into homes to hide,'' one unidentified resident told
El Meridiano, a local newspaper.
Warplanes also joined the counterattack, strafing and bombing the guerrillas,
said Gen. Fernando Tapias, chief of Colombia's armed forces. About 60 rebels
were killed and 13 soldiers died in the fighting, Tapias said.
Infrared video reportedly taken from a military surveillance plane showed the
ghostly images of rebels caught in the open - some sprawled on the ground and
others attempting to run away. The video was shown on TV newscasts here.
The local resident said he saw more than 60 wounded rebels, some with their
legs blown off, being helped out of Juan Jose by fellow guerrillas. Others
carried away the bodies of dead rebels in body bags and hammocks.
The mayor of the biggest town in the area, Puerto Libertador, said he
approached Juan Jose on Wednesday to find out what was happening and got
within 20 minutes from the village.
``I could hear lots of firing and explosions,'' Mayor Julio Sanchez said in a
telephone interview. ``Many planes and helicopters were also passing overhead
- you could tell there was a big operation going on.''
Sanchez said it was quiet in the area on Thursday. Troops were chasing the
surviving guerrillas farther into the surrounding forests, Tapias said.
Thirteen government soldiers were reported killed in the fighting.
A spokeswoman at an office of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC, said the rebels were assessing the military situation and had no
immediate comment on the fighting. The spokeswoman was reached at a FARC
office inside a safe haven in southern Colombia that President Andres
Pastrana granted to the rebels in order to jump-start peace talks. After more
than two years, peace talks with Colombia's biggest rebel group have produced
few results.
Tapias said ``technical intelligence'' allowed the military to track the
rebel column before the battle erupted, and that another column of 500 to 600
rebels was being tracked in eastern Colombia. The army was mobilizing troops
to attack that column, which Tapias said recently departed from the FARC safe
haven.
Tapias did not say where the technical intelligence was coming from. The
United States can gain such information from its spy planes and satellite
imagery. The U.S. Embassy said it had no immediate comment on whether the
United States was providing this information to the Colombian military.
The Blackhawks used in the fighting around Juan Jose were purchased from the
United States and were not part of the fleet of helicopters that is being
donated by Washington as part of a 1.3 billion anti-narcotics aid package,
Colombian military sources said.
The FARC, as well as a right-wing paramilitary group, is earning huge profits
by ``taxing'' cocaine and heroin producers. The money is fueling Colombia's
37-year civil war by allowing the illegal armed groups to better equip
themselves and recruit more combatants.
AP-NY-08-02-01 1421EDT
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news
report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed
without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active
hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
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