Colombian soldiers killed in rebel attacks

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Bogota - Long dormant Marxist rebels killed six Colombian soldiers in two separate bomb attacks, detonating a mine field and a house packed with explosives, the army said on Sunday.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia activated mines which killed four members of an army patrol in a rural sector of the north-west province of Antioquia on Saturday night.

Other members of the guerrilla army known as FARC blew up a house filled with explosives and killed two other troops at the other end of the country in Meta province on Sunday, the army said.

The FARC have killed about 50 troops so far this month in a violent rebuttal of recent military claims they had been pushed into retreat by a defence build-up under President Alvaro Uribe.

IOL