Colombia rebels, security forces clash, 21 dead

CNN October 29, 1998 Colombia rebels, security forces clash, 21 dead

                  BOGOTA (Reuters) -- Leftist rebels used home-made missiles to destroy a
                  police station in an attack on a town in northeast Colombia that left at least
                  16 combatants dead, authorities said Wednesday.

                  The assault by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on
                  Hacari, in Norte de Santander province, began late Tuesday and raged into
                  the early hours of Wednesday.

                  A police spokesman said two police agents died trying to defend their
                  barracks as a hail of gas cylinders packed with explosives rained down. Six
                  soldiers -- reinforcements sent in to assist the police -- were killed as they
                  stumbled into a minefield which the guerrillas had laid.

At least eight FARC fighters were also killed in the clash, according to the
police.

                  The FARC first used rudimentary missiles made from gas cylinders in a
                  devastating attack on a police anti-drug base in the southeast town of
                  Miraflores in early August. The weapons can be fired from about 100 yards
                  and are capable of destroying thick concrete walls, security force sources
                  say.

                  In southern Putumayo province, FARC guerrillas bombed an oil storage
                  tank, burning about 1,000 barrels of crude, and destroyed a helicopter used
                  for oil exploration work, a spokesman for the state-run oil company
                  Ecopetrol said.

                  In other fighting across Colombia Tuesday night, security forces killed four
                  National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels who had abducted a cattle rancher
                  in northwest Antioquia province. The kidnap victim was released unharmed.

In the central city of Manizales, meanwhile, a local politician was murdered
by unidentified gunmen.

                  Both the FARC and the ELN, the oldest and largest rebel forces in the
                  hemisphere, have pledged to take part in talks with President Andres
                  Pastrana aimed at ending their three-decade-old uprising. But the two
                  groups have said negotiations must continue "in the middle of the war".