BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- Gunmen killed the mayor of a violent
                 Colombian town near a Marxist rebel stronghold, riddling his body with
                 bullets as he left work, police said on Wednesday.

                 John William Lozano, the mayor of Puerto Rico, in Caqueta province in southern
                 Colombia, was hit by six bullets late on Tuesday -- making the 34-year-old Liberal
                 Party member the first mayor killed this year in the war-torn nation.

                 Lozano took the post last August, after Puerto Rico's previous mayor, Jose Lizardo
                 Rojas, was gunned down.

                 Six Colombian mayors were killed last year and 10 were kidnapped, often by
                 outlawed fighters in the Andean nation's guerrilla war. The conflict, pitting the army
                 against Marxist rebels and far-right paramilitary death squads, has dragged on for
                 nearly 38 years and claimed 40,000 lives in a decade.

                 Puerto Rico lies near the Switzerland-sized demilitarized enclave ceded the leftist
                 FARC rebels three years ago to launch peace talks, which are now on the brink of
                 collapse.

                 The military is barred from entering the zone, and the United States and Colombian
                 authorities accuse the rebels of using the enclave as a massive prison for its kidnap
                 victims and as a base for a cocaine trafficking business.

                  Copyright 2002 Reuters.