March 06, 2003
A BOMB set off by suspected rebels ripped through a shopping centre in north-eastern Colombia killing seven people, injuring at least 20 and setting the complex on fire.
Television images showed shocked survivors wandering around the shopping stalls, blackened Ash Wednesday marks still on their foreheads.
Government officials said the attack in Cucuta, on the border with Venezuela, was part of an attempt by guerrillas to bring the nation's long-simmering war to Colombia's cities.
Defence Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez said the attack was a response to government offensives in the countryside. "Unfortunately, that is the risk we have to run," she said.
After the bombing, President Alvaro Uribe appointed a police general to root out rebel infiltrators in government offices in Cucuta.
The state news agency identified the prosecutor's office as one of the government agencies where people got jobs because of pressure from rebel groups.
"The police are conducting an internal investigation and will do everything necessary in Cucuta and North Santander (state)," Uribe said, according to Colombia's state news agency.
Cucuta Mayor Manuel Guillermo Mora said seven people were killed in the blast.
Police General Luis Alfredo Rodriguez said the National Liberation Army, or ELN, was responsible for the attack. The bomb was left next to a car in the basement parking lot, police said.
Firefighters, rescue crews and police officers hustled through the smoke into the shattered complex as frightened passers-by looked on.
The ELN and the nation's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, are battling outlawed paramilitary groups for control of Cucuta. The city has one of the highest murder rates in Colombia.
Colombia is torn by a 38-year civil war that pits the leftist rebels against the government and right-wing paramilitary groups. About 3500 people, mainly civilians, are killed in the fighting each year.
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