Hundreds of leftist rebels bombarded a remote police station with makeshift mortars during a six-hour attack in northern Colombia Wednesday, killing at least 15 officers, authorities said.
The attack on the police station in the village of Tierradentro, 230 miles northwest of Bogota, was the bloodiest since President Alvaro Uribe was re-elected in May in a landslide that endorsed his get-tough policy with the rebels.
“The latest report I have is that there are 15 dead police, between 10 and 12 missing police and four civilians injured,” said Jairo Lopez, the top security official for Cordoba state, where the attack occurred. “There were approximately 450 guerrillas.”
Lopez blamed the attack on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as the FARC. It came two weeks after Uribe called off talks with the FARC over a possible prisoner swap, blaming the rebels for a car bomb that injured 23 at a military base in Bogota.
