Colombia - Two in plane shot at close range - FARC holding 3 Americans

Houston Chronicle ^ | February 15, 2003 | AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

FLORENCIA, Colombia -- An American and a Colombian whose bodies were found in the wreckage of a U.S. antidrug plane were shot to death at close range "in an act of extreme cruelty," Colombia's top general said Friday.

The U.S. State Department said three other people in the aircraft, all Americans, may have been taken hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"We have reliable reports that crew members are being held by the terrorist group the FARC," State Department spokesman Charles Barclay said Friday in Washington. "If these reports are accurate, we demand the crew members be released unharmed immediately."

The bodies of an American and a Colombian were found in the wreckage of the plane. Gen. Jorge Mora, chief of the Colombian armed forces, told reporters both were "executed, in an act of extreme cruelty." Both died from the gunshot wounds, said Alonso Velasquez, director of the attorney general's office in Florencia.

The identities of those aboard haven't been released.

The single-engine Cessna plane went down Thursday in rebel territory in southern Colombia where the United States has backed a massive campaign in the region to locate and destroy the drug crops with aerial fumigation. Plantations of coca -- the main ingredient of cocaine -- are prevalent in this region of humid plains and jungle-covered mountains.

According to one report based on a radio interception, rebels quickly arrived on the scene of the plane crash and captured the survivors.

The State Department said the plane was a U.S. counter-drug aircraft.

President Alvaro Uribe lamented the deaths of "two people aboard the plane -- a sergeant in our army and an American citizen -- whose murders have been confirmed in the south of the country."

"There is a massive effort under way in a very unfriendly part of the country," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in Washington.

The Americans were contractors for the U.S. military's Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. government officials said in Washington. The U.S. Embassy said the plane crashed eight minutes before its scheduled arrival in Florencia, a provincial capital.

Colombian troops and U.S. officials continued their desperate search Friday for the survivors. DynCorp, a U.S. State Department contractor involved in anti-drug missions in Colombia, said Thursday that it was helping in the rescue effort.

Four Colombian soldiers involved in the rescue effort were reported injured by rebel land mines.

"The rebels have a large part of the area mined to stop troops from coming in," said Capt. Lida Zambrano, spokeswoman for the Colombian army's 12th Brigade.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

FARC Bomb targeted for Uribe kills 16 in Colombia - IRA and ETA training *** BOGOTA - A powerful blast leveled a home being raided by police Friday, killing 16 people and injuring more than 40 others in the latest of a string of urban bombings that have changed the dynamics of this country's 40-year-old guerrilla war. Acting on a tip, Colombian police and prosecutors raided a series of homes early Friday morning in a neighborhood near the airport in Neiva, a city about 150 miles southwest of Bogotá, the capital.

They were searching for a supposed cache of mortar shells that leftist guerrillas purportedly planned to use in an assassination attempt against President Alvaro Uribe, whose airplane was to arrive at the airport this morning. The plane would have passed less than 400 yards above the neighborhood. Around 5:30 a.m., shortly after the authorities entered the last of six homes searched, a powerful bomb exploded, destroying the building, damaging 15 nearby residences and shaking the neighborhood. Television video showed bloody people staggering from flattened homes. A prosecutor accompanying the raid and nine police agents, including the regional secret-police chief, were killed. Three of the dead were children.***

[Spruce]

Time for U.S. military's Southern Command to "fish or cut bait".

[Cincinatus' Wife]

January 16, 2003 - U.S. Special Forces Arrive in Colombia

[Conservonanza]

Oh NO, cannot go past our Southern Spongey borders, for it may pee off a decrepit Mexican Official (who may have killed a US soldier) better known by all citizens on the borders as a "Federale".

What the Hell has to happen?

Iraqis with bomb material trying to cross the borders into Texas, California or New Mexico to kill thousands of legal taxpaying American and other countrymen?

Hello? The reason to cross any US border is no longer to be an "American Citizen" is it?

It is to come to Teddy Kennedy's free for all country for votes, is it not?

SOBs like the drunk child-drowner Kennedy is not concerned about the welfare of the downtrodden of any who live in the United States of America, because Kennedy and his sick bastard friends are concerned with the "WELFARE" of the folks they are able to keep poor and educationally bankrupt.

It should be repeated over and over that the only bastards who want the PLANTATION EXPLANATION of the "downtrodden" and the "depressed" are New England Elites whose familys owned slaves themselves, but continue to deny WHY THEY HAVE NOT GIVEN THE VERY SLAVE DESCENDANTS ANY MONEYS FOR REPARATIONS, BUT DAMN SURE WANT THE REST OF THE COUNTRY TO GIVE UP MONEYS TO PEOPLE LIKE JESSIE JACKSON'S FAMILIAL WANNABEES AND "CARBUNCLE BILLY" DOWN IN GALVESTON.

For Honest Hispanic, Black and White folk this attempt gets old real quick.

Yes, maybe it's been on Limbaugh and Cavuto and Boortz and Hannity (Goodness, maybe it's getting out?), but to forget it is to let it disappear in the myriad of crap the "mawhoor" networks put out...

As the man said, .. "Just the facts, M'aam", or is that too hard to ask?

[Conservonanza]

Yes, I know this is directed at Colombia, but should not our borders come first?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Securing the U.S. is a Herculean task made more difficult by the caliber of elected officials in Congress.

[Stultis]

FARC just farced up. They have provided the political basis for U.S. Special Forces to go from training Columbians how to kill leftist narco-terrorists to actually demonstrating the procedure. Time to Afghanistanize these muthas. Get the CIA in there with fistfulls of cash, turning scum against scum. Get the intelligence and start putting bullets in foreheads.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

FARC just farced up.

And they'll continue because no one will crack down. I hope you're right about your assumptions.

[taxed2death]

US specisal forces have been operating in Colombia for over 20 years. Nothing new. If you want to read what a complete waste of money this war on drugs is, there are more than a few books written on the subject in any B&N store.

Cheers

[taxed2death]

.......we've been doing what you've stated, with the groups you've mentioned, for over 20 years. The results have been more drugs into our country increasing each year.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Tailgunner Joe]

bttt