Colombia was hit by a series of attacks between Thursday night and Friday morning, the first major attack on the military since the mafia group, which sprang from the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), announced earlier this week that it would expand its operations. It became.
The attack in the country’s war-torn southwest used explosives and firearms and left one soldier injured, the military said.
FARC dissidents came after President Gustavo Petro’s government announced that FARC dissidents had violated a ceasefire by attacking rural indigenous communities in the same area where recent nighttime attacks occurred. A ceasefire between known armed groups and authorities was recently suspended.
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The attack marks a major setback for Petro, a left-wing former guerrilla leader who won the presidency on a promise to establish “complete peace” in a country long plagued by violence. .
The wounded soldier was guarding the army’s headquarters in the city of Tumaco, an insurgent stronghold in the southwest. He was injured by fragments of a grenade thrown by a motorcyclist, but the incident is still under investigation.
The Colombian flag is photographed on April 12, 2012, just before the 6th Summit of the Americas in Colombia. (Photo by LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty Images)
Minutes earlier, another explosive was thrown in front of a military facility in the Colombian city of Cali, causing no injuries. The military said the attack was carried out by FARC rebels.
“The tactic they use is to bring the vehicle close to a military installation and activate an assault that sets off the explosives inside,” Maj. Gen. Eric Rodríguez Aparicio told reporters Friday morning.
Rodríguez Aparicio said the attack was an attack by the military against two different factions of FARC rebels, known as Segunda Marquetaria and Estado Mayor Central, in the Valle del Cauca, Nariño and Cauca regions. It was a response to a coercive operation,” he added.
The third attack occurred early Friday morning in the countryside of Jamundi, a town 25 miles from Kali, when armed fighters opened fire on a police station from the mountains.
Police said in a statement that they called for military reinforcements but were attacked by mafia fighters throwing gas canisters filled with explosives and shrapnel.
The FARC rebels were born after a historic 2016 peace deal between the guerrillas and the government began to fall apart and many former rebels took up arms against the government again. They join a toxic group of small drug-trafficking militias competing for territory and causing a surge in violence in Colombia in recent years.
Petro is trying to change the way the South American country approaches endemic violence, shifting away from military tactics to addressing root causes such as poverty and negotiating peace deals with some armed groups.
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But so far, violence has not subsided, with many militia groups using the ceasefire to gain territory and step up their illegal activities.
