The Colombian army seized on Saturday four tons of explosives belonging
to FARC rebels in a mountainous jungle area of the southwestern
province of Valle del Cauca.
Gen. Justo Eliseo Peña, commander of the army’s 3rd Division, told Spanish press agency Efe that
the explosives confiscated were composed of “R-1,” a special substance
for making this kind of device, and that it was found “thanks to
informers and intelligence operations.”
The four tons of
explosives were found at a place in the Sabaletas sector between the
town of Buga and the port of Buenaventura, some 500 kilometers (310
miles) southwest de Bogota.
The substance was being transported
in nine oil drums that “were tossed aside by the bandits,” apparently
“members of the Libardo Garcia Unit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, or FARC, that operates in that region.
Gen. Peña
told Efe by telephone from the place of the discovery and as part of
the so-called Operation Hammer, that troops were deployed to “verify
information from intelligence.”
“The bandits realized what was
happening, tried to hide them (the explosives) and then chose to
abandon them as the troops closed in, since it was an insurmountable
maneuver,” the officer said.
Arrests have yet to be made in the
continuing operation, Gen. Peña revealed, adding that the explosives might have come into the country
clandestinely from abroad through the port of Buenaventura.
The
discovery of this new cache of explosives took place just hours after
five soldiers were killed and eight more were wounded in a minefield in
the central province of Meta.
The explosion occurred in the
rural area of Vista Hermosa, some 200 kilometers (124 miles) south of
Bogota, where the soldiers had found a stash of FARC weapons.
He
said that a lieutenant, a non-commissioned officer and three enlisted
men were killed in the clash in Caño Cabra, an area considered to be “the
strategic heart of the FARC.”