BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- Marxist rebels kidnapped up to 40
                  people in northern Colombia Monday, but all were freed in a rapid-fire army
                  rescue operation that left one guerrilla dead and two hostages seriously
                  injured.

                  The kidnapping, in which many of the victims were children snatched on their
                  way to school, was the latest in a string of mass abductions by insurgents in
                  Colombia, and added to a collective sense of terror in a country torn by
                  more than 35 years of war.

                  But Gen. Rafael Hernandez, head of the military's joint chiefs of staff,
                  heralded the army's quick response to the rebel action, saying it showed the
                  authorities were fully prepared to confront "these terrorists who are trying to
                  intimidate the Colombian people."

                  "Our message to the country is that we're doing our part and reacting in the
                  quickest and most opportune way, we're demonstrating the high level of
                  efficiency and capacity of our soldiers," Hernandez said in a broadcast
                  interview.

                  The kidnapping in Ocana, a city in a mountainous area of northeast Norte de
                  Santander province rife with rebels and right-wing death squads, began
                  shortly before dawn when rebel commandos set up a makeshift roadblock in
                  a working-class district.

                  The guerrillas, who Hernandez identified as members of the Maoist-inspired
                  People's Liberation Army -- the smallest of Colombia's three main rebel
                  groups -- proceeded to commandeer a bus and several other vehicles,
                  speeding off with their passengers into nearby mountains.

                  "The total number was more than 30 or 40," Hernandez told reporters, when
                  asked for a specific breakdown on the number of kidnap victims and
                  children.

                  Hernandez said all the children were freed about 50 minutes after the
                  abduction, as army troops closed in on the kidnappers. The rest of the
                  hostages were released after a brief firefight, in which two hostages were
                  injured and a guerrilla, who Hernandez identified only as a female "bandit,"
                  was shot and killed.

                  Colombians have long lived in fear of being abducted by rebels, who use
                  often hefty ransoms to help finance their long-running war against the state.

                  But Monday's rebel action was part of a new kind of abduction known as
                  "miraculous fishing," which guerrillas have used with increasing frequency in
                  the last two years or so.

                  As in Ocana, the "fishing" usually takes place at a makeshift roadblock,
                  where guerrillas kidnap every prosperous-looking person caught in snarled
                  traffic.

                  In May this year rebels abducted more than 160 people attending Mass at a
                  Roman Catholic church in the southwestern city of Cali. About 30 people
                  remain captive following that attack.

                  A month earlier fighters from the National Liberation Army (ELN) forced
                  down a commercial airliner with 41 people aboard and kidnapped its
                  passengers and crew. Fifteen people were still being held Monday.

                  Daniel Hoffman, one of the airliner kidnap victims, was freed unharmed
                  Saturday. News reports linked the release of the 35-year-old U.S. citizen to
                  mediation efforts by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

                  Colombia's intractable guerrilla conflict has taken more than 35,000 lives
                  over the last decade. The country, Latin America's third-largest, has what
                  security officials routinely describe as the highest rate of kidnappings
                  anywhere in the world, with more than 2,600 cases reported by the National
                  Police in 1998.

                  That rate was up by more than one-third from 1997, and an overwhelming
                  majority of the abductions were blamed on rebels.