By JARED KOTLER
 Associated Press Writer

 BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia's military destroyed a U.S. government helicopter to keep it from falling into the hands of
 guerrillas who forced it down during an anti-drug mission, Colombian and American officials said Thursday.

 Five Colombian police officers died protecting the downed UH-1N helicopter aircraft, and three Colombian soldiers were wounded.
 There were no Americans aboard the State Department helicopter when it was hit by ground fire last week.

 The crew — including Colombian police and a Peruvian pilot working for a private American company contracted by the U.S.
 government for the drug war — was evacuated unharmed, the officials said.

 Hovering above was a second U.S. Huey helicopter with a search-and-rescue team that included Americans and Colombians working
 for the same contractor that employed the Peruvian pilot, said Col. Carlos Rivera, deputy director of Colombia's anti-narcotics police.
 The team was not called into action, he said.

 The helicopter was destroyed to prevent it from falling into the hands of the guerrillas, said a U.S. Embassy official who spoke on
 condition of anonymity.

 The downing of the helicopter and the deaths were reported on Jan. 18, the day they occurred, but officials did not reveal at the time
 that it was a U.S. government aircraft.

 Charlene Wheeless, a spokeswoman for the contractor — DynCorp of Reston, Va. — confirmed by e-mail that the Peruvian pilot of the
 downed helicopter and ``Americans and third country nationals'' aboard the search and rescue helicopter are company employees.
 She did not provide more details on the crew.

 The incident marked the second time rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have shot or forced down a
 counterdrug helicopter in less than a year. It illustrates the obstacles facing anti-drug efforts in the nation that produces most of the
 world's cocaine.

 It also highlights the large role played by civilian contractors in the war against drugs, which Colombia is fighting with hundreds of
 millions of dollars in U.S. aid for destroying crops and laboratories guarded by the FARC and other insurgent groups.

 Some of the riskier jobs are being carried out by the contractors, many of them Americans — including U.S. military veterans — who
 have experience flying and repairing helicopters and crop dusters, or have worked as paramedics.

 Last February, a DynCorp search-and-rescue team risked rebel gunfire to help rescue the crew of a downed Colombian police
 helicopter in the same area of southern Caqueta state where last week's combat occurred.

 Critics say private contractors are used to avoid putting U.S. military personnel at risk, something that could sap American public
 support for the drug war in Colombia.

 In last Friday's fighting, Rivera said, a crop duster and five helicopter escorts were on a drug-spraying mission over the coca-growing
 town of Curillo when FARC rebels fired machine guns from the ground. The town is close to the main stronghold of the 16,000-strong
 rebel group.

 ``We take hits almost every day,'' Rivera added.

 Bullets ripped into the hydraulic system of one of helicopters, setting an oil light flashing and forcing its pilot to make an emergency
 landing by a riverbank.

 A support helicopter — a Black Hawk also provided by Washington — landed, scooped up the damaged helicopter's four-man crew and
 left 16 police to guard the aircraft until reinforcements could arrive. Five were fatally shot by the estimated 200 rebels on the ground,
 and three soldiers were wounded when bullets pierced their rescue helicopter.

 Rivera said police tried to land a repair crew to fix the downed helicopter and fly it out, but the rebels were too numerous. An air force
 plane was sent in to bomb the chopper from the air. Rivera said the Colombian government received U.S. authorization before
 destroying the helicopter.