Colombian police dismantled grenade launchers pointed at the presidential palace late on Tuesday that they said rebels had placed there, a day after one of the president’s top congressional allies survived a car bombing.
Tipped off by neighbors, police found eight grenades and launchers in a working class area of central Bogota from which the rebels fired similar explosives at President Alvaro Uribe’s inauguration in 2002 that killed 21 people.
“The launchers were pointed north and that’s where the presidential palace is,” said Metropolitan Police Commander Luis Gomez Heredia.
Monday’s car bomb and Tuesday’s seizure came days before the Constitutional Court was expected to decide whether to allow Uribe, popular among most Colombians but detested by the country’s Marxist insurgents, to run for re-election.
The constitution bars re-election for presidents but congress approved an amendment last year allowing re-election. It must be now approved by the constitutional court.
Analysts say the rebels are out to show Uribe’s tough security policies are not paying off ahead of May’s presidential election. Colombia has suffered four decades of guerrilla war claiming thousands of lives a year.
