The Colombian Army dismantled and destroyed three separate caches of explosives totaling around 660 pounds, allegedly belonging to Colombia’s largest rebel group the FARC, Colombia’s El Espectador newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The army reported that the first operation occurred in Colombia’s southwestern state of Cauca where FARC guerrillas had installed a mine field in the village of Guayabo in the municipality of Tambo. The explosives were discovered a mere 55 yards from the neighboring households.
Authorities blamed members of the second company of the Jacobo Arenas Front of the FARC for the installation of the mine field, composed of 17 cylinders of 40 pounds with approximately 22 pounds of explosives and shrapnel within each one, according to El Espectador.
In a separate operation, which occurred in the village of San Pedro in the municipality of Tambo, Cauca, troops from the Colombian army’s Mobile Brigade N. 37 dismantled another site that contained two large rifles pertaining to the same guerrilla group.
Another site was located nearby where the FARC had hidden 1,000 non-electric detonators.
These materials can be used to construct or detonate numerous explosive devices and are utilized by members of the FARC in the countryside as well as in heavily populated transitory areas.
A final site with explosive materials was found in the village of Esmeralda in the municipality of Florida, in Colombia’s western Valle del Cauca state. Soldiers destroyed three large cans with 364 pounds of ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO), a widely used industrial explosive mixture, which they found hidden in the underbrush of the location.
Earlier in June, two cocaine labs were destroyed in Cauca, and nearly two tons of the narcotic were seized.
MORE: Cocaine labs destroyed in southwestern Colombia
The cocaine was said to have a street value in excess of $1.5 million while the laboratories that were destroyed were believed to belong to the same Jacobo Arenas Front of the FARC.
Sources
- Hallan caleta con más de 300 kilos de explosivos de las Farc (El Espectador)