BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- Security forces said they killed more than
                  60 Marxist rebels heading for a safe haven in southeast Colombia on
                  Wednesday, three days after guerrillas inflicted one of the worst defeats of
                  the year on a military unit near the Panama border.

                  Police operations director Gen. Alfonso Arellano said the 300-strong
                  Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) column was decimated
                  by a wave of air strikes as it retreated after an attack on Hobo, a colonial
                  town in central Huila province.

                  "More than 60 guerrillas died ... This gives us the encouragement to carry
                  on fighting," Arellano told reporters, adding that one policeman died in the
                  attack on Hobo.

                  "The guerrillas wanted to carry out a demolition job (on the town) but this
                  time they could not," he added.

                  Television images showed the entire downtown area of Hobo had been
                  leveled and just piles of still-smoldering ruins remained, however.

                  Army sources said at least 50 guerrillas of the FARC, Latin America's
                  largest surviving rebel army, had died. The column was thought to be headed
                  for a Switzerland-sized region in the southeast which President Andres
                  Pastrana cleared of security forces as a forum for slow-moving peace talks,
                  officials said.

                  There was, however, no independent confirmation of the death toll. A
                  reporter for the nationwide radio network Radionet, speaking from Hobo,
                  said no rebel corpses had so far been found.

                  All sides in Colombia's three-decade-old war, which has claimed more than
                  35,000 lives in just 10 years, routinely exaggerate enemy losses and
                  minimize their own casualties.

                  A 600-strong FARC column on Sunday overran a Navy base in the
                  northwest coastal town of Jurado just 15 miles (25 km) from the
                  Panamanian border. Independent civilian authorities said at least 45 Marines
                  died and said there were no reports of guerrilla dead.

                  Navy commanders, however, said just 23 Marines were killed and that 42
                  rebels died.

                  According to armed forces figures some 200 guerrillas have been killed in
                  fighting in the last month. But only a handful of bodies have been shown to
                  the media.

                  The military, which has suffered a string of devastating defeats by the
                  country's estimated 20,000 rebels in the last three years, is currently being
                  restructured.

                  One of the cornerstones of the plan is the army's recently created Rapid
                  Deployment Force. A mission statement describes its role as launching swift
                  counterattacks and increasing the rebel body count by a "minimum 50
                  percent."

                  The unit, however, which has 4,200 men and is backed by a formidable
                  array of air power, was nowhere to be seen at the height of Sunday's fighting
                  in Jurado.

                  "The public fails to understand how the first reinforcements arrived (in
                  Jurado) 18 hours after the start of the guerrilla onslaught," said the lead
                  editorial in Wednesday's edition of the leading El Tiempo newspaper.

                  "The nation is calling on its armed forces for fewer announcements, fewer
                  military parades and more results."

                     Copyright 1999 Reuters.