Colombia - Two in plane shot at close range - FARC holding 3 Americans [Full Text] 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. [End]
when farc is wiped out... castro will have spent all his money, and all of our cocaine dollars, on yet another failed communista adventure.
Chavez has allied himself with Senor Satan... and his end will be very very bitter. He should never have come back. He has played the fool... and will pay the price for that decision.
God save the good people in Venezuela... and protect them till the time for change in the region is ripe... lets hope it doesn't take us 12 years to step up to the plate in our own hemisphere...