Rebels kill 15 in raid on Navy base (Colombia)

[Rose Siding]

BOGOTA - A leftist guerrilla raid on a remote Colombian Navy base that killed 15 and wounded about 25 Tuesday was the first major rebel attack since President Alvaro Uribe launched a powerful military offensive two years ago.

Helicopter gunships, patrol boats and the heavily armed, slow-flying aircraft known as ''ghost'' planes were chasing the 200 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, who staged the attack, Navy officers said.

They said the rebels fired devastatingly powerful homemade mortar-bombs -- fashioned from cooking gas containers like those in barbecues -- at a Navy river base in the western Iscuandé section of Nariño province, about 350 miles southwest of Bogotá.
...
The U.S. government has provided close to $3 billion in mostly military aid and training to Colombia since 2000 to help the government fight the drug traffickers and rebels.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/10792031.htm

[bemildred]

1. "powerful military offensive"

Which has accomplished zippety-doo-dah.

[Ezlivin]

2. Drug War Over! We've won!

It's impossible to get illegal drugs anymore.

Everyone is successfully screened through accurate drug testing.

We've used mandatory minimums to incarcerate drug king pins, devastating the drug business.

We've spent over 30 years and 30 billion dollars on the drug war and every penny was wisely spent and goals were set and met.

In 1988 Congress issued this proclamation: “It is the declared policy of the United States to create a Drug-Free America by 1995.”

We've been drug free for years!

[Renew Deal]

3. Mission Accomplished

:smoke:

[Rose Siding]

4. A second attack: Rebel Ambush Kills 8 Colombian Soldiers

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Marxist rebels in southern Colombia ambushed an army convoy with explosives and gunfire Wednesday, killing eight soldiers and wounding four others in the second deadly guerrilla attack in as many days, the military said.

President Alvaro Uribe late Wednesday blamed both attacks on errors by members of the military, and urged soldiers to exercise more caution.

In Wednesday's attack, soldiers were traveling along a highway near Santa Ana, 350 miles southwest of the capital, Bogota, when their vehicles came under attack from fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, according to the military. One civilian was also killed.

That assault came a day after the FARC, in a struggle for control of a jungle river used for cocaine trafficking, fired rockets into a Colombian marine post, killing at least 15 soldiers and wounding 25. It was the deadliest assault on the military since President Alvaro Uribe came to power more than two years ago on promises to destroy the FARC.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-colombia-violence,0,622530.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines