BOGOTA (AP) - A mortar attack by leftist rebels in Colombia’s cocaine-producing southeastern jungle killed four soldiers from an elite counter-guerrilla unit and left another one missing, military officials said Tuesday.
A platoon from the 7th Mobile Brigade was retrieving the bodies of two guerrillas killed in a bombardment when the soldiers came under attack, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters.
He said one soldier was also wounded in Monday’s attack by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in an area of Guaviare state known as Cano Flauta. The Guaviare region is laced with rivers, thick jungle and plantations of coca, the basis for cocaine, which finances Colombia’s illegal armed groups.
Armed Forces chief Gen. Freddy Padilla said in a statement that a lieutenant and four soldiers with whom contact was lost during combat were found Tuesday afternoon “in excellent condition.”
The four deaths bring to 74 the number of Colombian soldiers killed in combat this year, according to the Defense Ministry. In addition, 28 police officers have been killed.
Colombia’s U.S.-backed military has made significant inroads against the FARC since 2005, when 717 soldiers and police were killed in combat by Defense Ministry count. Last year, that number dropped to 373, by official count.
Military analysts have speculated that the FARC could launch serious attacks this week, the one-year anniversary of the death of the rebel movement’s founding commander, Manuel Marulanda.
Colombia’s news media have carried reports in recent days about the armed forces supposedly closing in on a top FARC commander named Jorge Briceno, or “Mono Jojoy” after finding caves in the Macarena mountain range just west of Guaviare believed to have served as hideouts for his fighters.
Briceno is the FARC’s field marshal and commands its Eastern Bloc, which operates in Guaviare.
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