BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) --A kidnap victim, a wayward adventurer or a foreigner fighting with Colombian rebels?

Mystery surrounded the death of a man thought to be a Briton who was killed Sunday alongside a rebel in a firefight with Colombian government troops.

Colombian authorities have been on heightened alert about the presence of foreigners inside guerrilla territory after the arrests in August of three alleged Irish Republican Army
members accused of training rebels in urban warfare.

The army said the man killed Sunday was carrying a passport from Britain that identified him as 28-year-old Jeremy Parks of Northern Ireland. He was clad in military-style
clothes and was found after army troops fought with National Liberation Army rebels near a road running from Quibdo, capital of Choco state, to Medellin, Colombia's
second-biggest city.

Rebels sometimes force their kidnap victims to don rebel uniforms, but British Embassy spokesman Alfonso Morales said there had been no reports that anyone by the name
of Parks had been abducted.

Parks' mother, Monica Parks, said her son had been on vacation in South America "and has no connection with any terrorist group," according to a family friend, Bob
Armstrong.

Mrs. Parks is in touch with British officials and does not know if the body was her son's, Armstrong told reporters in Britain. He said that the Parks family had last heard
from Jeremy on Oct. 17 and that he was due back in England on Nov. 18.

In London, the British Foreign Office said it was in contact with Parks' relatives and that the body had not yet been conclusively identified. There was a "slim chance" that
Parks' passport had been stolen and somehow ended up on another man's body, the Foreign Office said.

The army said Parks' passport indicated he was from Northern Ireland, but the British Embassy said there were no indications of any link with the embattled province.

In August, the three alleged IRA members were captured after spending time in an area controlled by the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. They had been
traveling with falsified passports and identities and are now jailed awaiting a possible terrorism trial in Colombia.

There have been no reports of IRA involvement with the smaller National Liberation Army.

The army said the passport indicated Parks had traveled to Cuba in July, entered Ecuador on Sept. 9, and on Sept. 15 crossed the border overland into Colombia.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

             Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.