Colombian Rebels Besiege Town
Filed at 11:35 a.m. EDT
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombian troops flew in U.S.-made combat helicopters to a remote mountain town to battle rebels who attacked a police station and claimed to have killed nearly two dozen officers.
Just before dusk Sunday, 150 army troops and national police flew into the town of Arboleda aboard Blackhawk and Huey helicopters, said national police chief Gen. Ernesto Gilibert. Some troops also arrived on foot and clashed with rebels as they approached the town.
Security forces found only three survivors of Arboleda's 25-man police contingent, said Alfonso Rodriguez Guerrero, an officer at national police headquarters in Bogota, the capital.
The army was looking for the 14 missing police officers, and said they had found the bodies of eight officers and at least four civilians. They said the death toll was likely to rise as soldiers secure the area.
The bodies were found "amid the ruins of their barracks, which was totally destroyed," said Army Col. Alberto Ardila, commander of the army's Eighth Brigade, which went to the scene of the two-day rebel attack.
Troops and police reinforcements, operating in the dark in a chaotic situation, were trying to determine the fate of the rest of the besieged policemen.
Ardila told local radio that two civilians were killed. Rodriguez Guerrero put the number at three.
The attack by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was one of the bloodiest since the United States approved $1.3 billion in aid to battle leftist rebels and other armed groups who are involved in narcotics production.
Controversy has arisen over whether U.S.-supplied combat helicopters, which provide security for planes fumigating drug crops in Colombia, should be used in counterinsurgency operations.
Gutierrez said radio transmissions from the besieged police officers had been cut after midnight, about 15 hours after the attack began Saturday morning. Rebels told a local photojournalist who tried to enter the town Sunday morning that they had killed 23 police officers.
"Communications with Arboleda have been severed and there is no way to verify this information, but we fear the worst," said police Col. Norberto Pelaez, police commander of Caldas province, where Arboleda is located.
Low cloud cover prevented reinforcements from arriving until late Sunday. Troops also spent hours hiking over twisting mountain trails to Arboleda, located 90 miles northwest of Bogota.
U.S. Ambassador Curtis W. Kamman said Colombian security forces weren't restricted to using the U.S.-made helicopters only in anti-drug operations.
"These helicopters can be used ... to defend the police and military forces if they are under attack in a zone where there are anti-narcotics activities," Kamman was quoted as saying in an interview on Saturday with ANCOL, the Colombian government's news agency.
However, Arboleda is not believed to be in a region producing cocaine or heroin.
Some observers say U.S. policy regarding military aid to Colombia is growing increasingly blurry, and can lead to the United States being drawn into the South American nation's 35-year civil war. But others charge that restrictions on the U.S. support are too tight.
This weekend's attack was similar to one mounted by the FARC on July 15 on the southwestern town of Roncesvalles. The rebels besieged the police station in the town, and after police ran out of ammunition, the guerrillas allegedly executed 13 of the officers. The deaths drew criticisms -- including in the U.S. Congress -- that the Blackhawks, if used, could have saved the policemen.
Under the new U.S. aid package, approved by President Clinton on July 13, Washington will provide 60 more helicopters, including Blackhawks and Hueys, to Colombian security forces.