Colombia’s government on Saturday accused the country’s largest remaining rebel organization of carrying out an explosion outside a police base, an attack that wounded 11 officers and killed a police dog.
The blast struck in the early hours of Saturday in Cucuta, a city on Colombia’s border with Venezuela, where rebel factions and drug trafficking groups have long battled for control of lucrative smuggling corridors.
Gen. William Rincon, Colombia’s national police director, said the explosion was caused by a truck that had been parked outside the building housing the police headquarters for Norte de Santander Province. The pre-dawn detonation tore through much of the roof and blew out windows across the facility.
“This was a vile terrorist attack,” Rincon said. “We will not rest until we find those who are responsible and have them prosecuted.”
Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez, writing on X, blamed the National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, for the attack. He also announced a $60,000 reward for information that helps identify and capture those responsible for the car bombing.
The attack comes at a tense political moment as Colombia prepares to inaugurate a new president. Abelardo de la Espriella, an ultra-conservative who has vowed to end peace talks with the country’s remaining rebel groups, is set to be sworn into office next Friday in Cali, another Colombian city where rebel organizations have recently carried out attacks.
The National Liberation Army, or ELN, has waged an armed campaign against the Colombian government for decades. Authorities believe the group has about 6,000 fighters operating across Colombia and neighboring Venezuela.
Founded in the 1960s by union leaders, students and peasants who said they were fighting for social justice, the ELN has since evolved, according to Colombian authorities, into a criminal network that profits from illegal gold mining and drug trafficking. President Gustavo Petro has repeatedly accused its leaders of behaving like “drug lords dressed up as guerrilla fighters.”
Under outgoing President Gustavo Petro, who was elected in 2022, Colombia staged peace negotiations with the ELN. But the talks fell apart early last year, after the ELN staged attacks in the rural area north of Cucuta, in which an estimated 78 people were killed. At least 56,000 had to flee their homes.
Incoming President Abelardo de la Espriella has said he will confront the ELN and criminal groups in Colombia with greater military force, and will resume the aerial fumigation of coca crops, the raw material for cocaine.
Petro attempted to launch peace talks with several armed groups during his tenure under a strategy known as Total Peace. But critics say many of these groups used ceasefires granted to them by the government to regroup, rearm and strengthen their grip over rural communities.
A peace deal between Colombia’s government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia led to the disarmament of more than 13,000 guerrilla fighters in 2016. That left a power vacuum in some rural areas that smaller groups like the ELN have tried to fill.
