FARC rebels blamed for Bogota bombing, 32 dead
( 2003-02-09 08:48) (7)
Soldiers, police and investigators combed Bogota for suspects on Saturday after a nightclub car bombing killed at least 32 people and injured about 200 others.
In announcing the new toll, police officials warned it could grow again because some people still remain missing.
Vice President Francisco Santos blamed leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
"I have no doubt whatsoever it was the FARC.
"They have been carrying out this kind of strike, they are on an offensive in which Bogota is the target," he said.
A 12-year-old girl was pulled alive from the rubble after being buried overnight and is recovering in hospital, administrative prosecutor Luis Camilo Osorio told reporters.
Bodies were being pulled out Saturday of the rubble of the exclusive nine-storey El Nogal nightclub hit in a car bomb attack the night before.
Located in an upscale neighborhood in northern Bogota, the club hosted politicians and socialites at exclusive get-togethers.
"The intense investigations are taking place in the same upscale north and central areas of Bogota where the bombing took place as well as in the poorer southern areas because we are determined to capture the terrorists," an officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Pope John Paul II and the US and French governments condemned the attack.
The UN chief "strongly condemns this cruel bombing and all other terrorist attacks by any actor in the conflict," his spokesman said.
"The heartless killing of innocent civilians will only deepen the conflict and further undermine hopes for peace that Colombia seeks and deserves."
"On behalf of the United States, I condemn this barbaric act of terrorism," US President George W. Bush said in a statement released in Washington.
"We will offer all appropriate assistance to the Colombian government in bringing to justice the murderers responsible for this act."
Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus offered a 165,000-dollar reward for information on the bombing.
Investigators of the national prosecutor's office also blamed the attack on the FARC, which did not have an immediate reaction.
FARC, with 17,000 troops, and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), with 4,000, have coordinated their activities in recent weeks. They have placed a spate of car bombs near official buildings, army barracks and police stations around Colombia, officials said.
"What the drug traffickers used to do shamelessly they now do just as shamelessly," Santos said. In the 1980s and 1990s, drug lord Pablo Escobar also used car bombs to intimidate the public, but not with such frequency as in recent months.
Rebels set off at least four fatal bombs so far this year, mostly in areas of intense guerrillas activity, such as oil-rich northeastern Colombia near the Venezuelan border.
Another car bomb exploded outside the offices of the prosecutor's office in Colombia's second-largest city, Medellin, killing four people, most of them passers-by in January.
Bombings have accompanied President Alvaro Uribe since his August 7 inauguration when police say guerrillas attacked the ceremony with mortar fire, killing 17 and injuring 50.
Police defused six car bombs that they said were part of an assassination attempt on Uribe in early December, which was to be the first of spate of pre-Christmas bombings that authorities blame on rebels.
Uribe declared a state of emergency August 12, only five days after his inauguration and extended the emergency for 90 days as allowed by the Constitution.
Uribe was elected on a promise to get tough with Colombia's rebels, some of whom have harried the government for four decades.
The irregular war, which includes right-wing paramilitaries with ties to the armed forces, had been primarily a rural affair. Guerrillas now have stepped up their urban activities, with special emphasis on car bombings.
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