Colombia says ELN rebels killed 2 police officers as group protests US military buildup

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) – Colombian police said Tuesday that two officers were killed in the southwestern city of Cali in an attack by the National Liberation Army, a rebel group that has increasingly targeted authorities in what it says is an effort to show its opposition to the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean.

Police said the officers were patrolling a neighborhood on motorcycles when they were hit by a roadside bomb. The officers were taken to a nearby hospital but did not survive their injuries.

The National Liberation Army, also known by its Spanish acronym ELN, launched a 72-hour “armed strike” on Sunday to protest the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean.

During these armed strikes, schools and businesses are forced to close in areas under the group’s control, while the rebels step up attacks against government targets.

The ELN has not claimed responsibility for the attack in Cali.

Iris Marin, Colombia’s human rights ombudswoman, said Monday that the group had attacked a police station and a military base over the weekend, as it launched its armed strike. Those attacks took place in provinces along Colombia’s border with Venezuela and left an ambulance driver dead.

On Tuesday, authorities in Buenos Aires, a town located 60 km (37 miles) south of Cali, said that the local police station was attacked with rockets fired by the FARC-EMC, a rebel group that also blocked roads leading into the town.

Videos shared on social media showed that homes and government offices in the town were seriously damaged in the attack, including the local branch of Colombia’s Agrarian Bank. The bank said in a statement that two police officers were killed in the small town as they fought the rebels. Later, Colombia’s National Police said in a statement that said no officers were killed, but added that eight policemen had been injured.

Colombia’s government has been critical of the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, including the deployment of U.S. warships, and fighter jets to areas near Venezuela’s coast.

Last week, Colombian President Gustavo Petro described the Trump administrations’ seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast as an act of “piracy.”

But Colombian officials also said on Monday that the ELN’s protest against U.S. intervention “lacks any sense whatsoever” because it is targeting rural and urban communities in Colombia.

The ELN is a Marxist group inspired by the Cuban Revolution and the group has an estimated 6,000 fighters in Venezuela and Colombia. The ELN has been accused of running illegal mines and drug trafficking routes in both countries and supports Venezuela’s de facto leader Maduro.

Petro, who was a member of another rebel group in his youth, has attempted to conduct peace talks with the ELN, but negotiations were suspended in January after the group waged a series of attacks on villages in Colombia’s Catatumbo region that displaced more than 50,000 people.

Petro has accused the ELN of abandoning its revolutionary ideals and recently called it a group of “drug traffickers dressed up as guerrillas.”