BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s leftist insurgent National Liberation Army (ELN) on Saturday claimed responsibility for an assault within the nation’s third-largest metropolis, Cali, that injured greater than a dozen cops.
ELN operatives carried out the bombing, which was directed in opposition to members of ESMAD, the Colombian nationwide police’s feared anti-riot unit, late on Friday, whereas they have been touring in a automobile.
“At 9:55 pm on Jan. 7, our items carried out an operation in opposition to ESMAD … within the metropolis of Cali,” the ELN stated in an announcement revealed on an internet site belonging to its so-called city entrance, including that its members withdrew unhurt.
The ELN and nationwide police each confirmed that 13 officers have been injured within the assault, with police officers saying that some have been severely damage. No deaths have been reported.
The assault drew condemnation from the federal government and police, with President Ivan Duque decrying it as an try by the rebels to affect presidential elections later this yr.
“Colombia doesn’t and won’t bend to terrorism and our authorities won’t ever reward terrorists,” Duque stated in a message on Twitter.
Colombia is providing a reward of 1 billion pesos for info concerning El Rolo, the chief of the ELN’s city entrance, and 350 million pesos for info regarding those that deliberate and executed the assault, stated General Jorge Vargas, the nation’s prime police official. Together, the 2 rewards quantity to round $334,000.
The ELN is estimated to have some 2,350 combatants and has fought the federal government since its 1964 founding by extremist Roman Catholic clergymen.
Peace talks between the ELN and Colombia’s authorities have been placed on ice after a insurgent bombing killed 22 police cadets in 2019.
The authorities accuses Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro of harboring ELN rebels and dissident members of the demobilized FARC guerrillas who reject a 2016 peace deal, one thing the federal government in Caracas has repeatedly denied.
(Reporting by Oliver Griffin and Luis Jaime Acosta; Editing by Paul Simao)
