Colombian police announced that they believe that the bomb that exploded Wednesday afternoon outside the office of intelligence agency DAS in the southern Colombian city of Pasto, Nariño was a joint attack by guerrilla groups the FARC and the ELN.
Nariño police commander Colonel William Montezuma said that according to preliminary investigations the attack – which injured twelve, including two DAS detectives – was the work of “the FARC and the ELN.”
DAS Director Felipe Muñoz announced that detectives had detained two men and a woman who tried to flee the scene in a taxi following the explosion. It is believed they may have been responsible for the attack. The prosecutor general’s investigative unit is investigating.
Pasto Red Cross representative Henry Palacios told AFP that “the incident occured at 16:10 local time, when an individual dumped a bomb package next to an electricity post outside of the DAS building. After dumping it, he ran off.”
Palacios said that ten people, including a child and a pregnant woman, had received light wounds in the blast, while two men are in a serious but stable condition.
A security council meeting was called to address the latest in a series of attacks that have been carried out over the last week, killing almost 30 members of the Colombian armed forces.
Following the spate of attacks, the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos has categorically ruled out peace talks with Colombian rebel groups. Santos took office August 7 amid FARC peace overtures, after eight years of rebel losses under former President Alvaro Uribe’s hardline anti-insurgent policies.