FARC rebels killed three soldiers and wounded three more on Friday in an ambush close to Colombia’s capital Bogota.
A captain, a non-commissioned officer and a soldier were killed in the attack, which the army attributed to the 53th Front of the FARC.
The ambush, which took place just 22 miles south of the capital in the Sumapaz district, also left three soldiers wounded.
The central Cundinamarca department surrounding Bogota has seen an only marginal FARC presence since a security offensive launched by the then-government of Alvaro Uribe in 2002 largely pushed the rebels away from the area.
However, as evidenced by Friday’s attack, FARC guerrillas seem to have made something of a comeback in the areas surrounding the capital.
The FARC, a revolutionary socialist organization with tendencies towards Bolivarianism, an ideology putting emphasis on Latin American nationalism and anti-imperialism, has been fighting a succession of Colombian governments since 1964. The organization has been estimated to have between 9,000 and 11,000 armed members, supported by a militia network of some 30,000 “part-time fighters.” according to Jeremy McDermott, co-director of the crime-monitoring NGO Insight Crime.
So far in February, FARC rebels have killed at least 24 members of the Colombian security forces and launched numerous attacks against Colombia’s economically vital oil infrastructure.
