Colombia accused the ELN rebels Thursday of killing a Bogota policeman, then hiding explosives by his body and detonating them when colleagues rushed to his side, wounding five.
Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said investigators suspect that urban guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN) killed the 19-year-old auxiliary officer as he was guarding a power substation on the capital's north side on Wednesday night.
They then booby-trapped his body to take out his colleagues, he said.
"The leading theory is that this incident is the heinous and irresponsible work of the National Liberation Army... to terrorize the civilian population," Villegas told Caracol Radio.
Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa also condemned it as a "terrorist attack."
When police rushed to the scene, the attackers remotely detonated a charge of ammonal explosive mixed with shrapnel, wounding five more officers, Bogota police chief Hoover Penilla told a press conference.
It is the latest blow to President Juan Manuel Santos's efforts to open peace talks with the ELN.
Proposed talks have stalled even as the government begins implementing a peace deal with a larger rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Both leftist guerrilla armies launched a war against the government in the 1960s, unleashing a messy, multi-sided conflict that has killed more than 260,000 people.
The ELN and the government have agreed in principle to open peace talks. But they broke down just as they were due to open in October when the rebels failed to release an ex-congressman they are holding hostage.
"Despicable terrorist acts like the one yesterday in Bogota, if confirmed to be the work of the ELN, make negotiations difficult," said the government's chief peace negotiator with the ELN, Juan Camilo Restrepo.
In a separate incident, authorities said four suspected ELN members had been arrested Tuesday in the southwestern department of Narino.
Soldiers seized guns, ammunition and communications equipment from them, the army said. They are suspected of planning attacks on security forces, it said.
Authorities estimate the ELN has 1,500 fighters, mostly in remote rural areas. Attacks in Bogota have become rare.
Colombia accused the ELN rebels Thursday of killing a Bogota policeman, then hiding explosives by his body and detonating them when colleagues rushed to his side, wounding five.
Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said investigators suspect that urban guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN) killed the 19-year-old auxiliary officer as he was guarding a power substation on the capital’s north side on Wednesday night.
They then booby-trapped his body to take out his colleagues, he said.
“The leading theory is that this incident is the heinous and irresponsible work of the National Liberation Army… to terrorize the civilian population,” Villegas told Caracol Radio.
Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa also condemned it as a “terrorist attack.”
When police rushed to the scene, the attackers remotely detonated a charge of ammonal explosive mixed with shrapnel, wounding five more officers, Bogota police chief Hoover Penilla told a press conference.
It is the latest blow to President Juan Manuel Santos’s efforts to open peace talks with the ELN.
Proposed talks have stalled even as the government begins implementing a peace deal with a larger rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Both leftist guerrilla armies launched a war against the government in the 1960s, unleashing a messy, multi-sided conflict that has killed more than 260,000 people.
The ELN and the government have agreed in principle to open peace talks. But they broke down just as they were due to open in October when the rebels failed to release an ex-congressman they are holding hostage.
“Despicable terrorist acts like the one yesterday in Bogota, if confirmed to be the work of the ELN, make negotiations difficult,” said the government’s chief peace negotiator with the ELN, Juan Camilo Restrepo.
In a separate incident, authorities said four suspected ELN members had been arrested Tuesday in the southwestern department of Narino.
Soldiers seized guns, ammunition and communications equipment from them, the army said. They are suspected of planning attacks on security forces, it said.
Authorities estimate the ELN has 1,500 fighters, mostly in remote rural areas. Attacks in Bogota have become rare.
