Colombian violence: 17 police, military officers, dead in two days

Sep 3, 2010, 17:53 GMT

Bogota - The death toll mounted in attacks on Colombia police and military, with at least 17 officers declared dead, 12 injured and one still missing over two days.

The attacks were blamed on leftist rebels.

Colombian authorities updated late Thursday the number of casualties in attacks carried out Wednesday and Thursday in the provinces of Caqueta, Norte de Santander and Narino.

General Santiago Parra, commander of the Rural Security Unit of police, said a rebel ambush late Wednesday claimed the lives of 14 police officers in the municipality of El Doncello, in the southern Colombian province of Caqueta. He blamed the ambush on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

'The officers fell on a minefield and were then shot, and petrol was poured over them,' Parra told reporters. The bodies were then set on fire, demanding forensic help in identifying them. Six police officers were injured in the attack.

Parra said access to the area was slowed down by the need to defuse explosive devices planted by the rebels.

Three soldiers were killed Thursday in two clashes with alleged members of FARC in provinces at opposite ends of the country: in Norte de Santander, on the border with Venezuela, and Narino, on the Ecuadorian border.

Two were killed in Norte de Santander, outside of Salazar de las Palmas, in a shootout after soldiers on patrol were attacked, the radio network Caracol reported. One soldier is missing from that attack.

The third soldier was killed in Ricaurte, Narino, and six were injured an an ambush of a patrol vehicle as it travelled through the town. One soldier was in critical condition after suffering the loss of both legs in a bomb blast.

The attacks were the first major incidents since conservative former defence minister Juan Manuel Santos was inaugurated as Colombian president last month.

During the eight-year presidency of Santos' mentor and predecessor Alvaro Uribe, FARC had been forced into a certain retreat in the four-decade-old conflict that intertwines politics and the drug trade.

In a country where almost half the population lives in poverty, however, the rebels continue to have a substantial amount of power, and the Colombian geography, with its many remote jungle areas, allows them to escape security forces with relative ease.