At least 18 people were killed and dozens more wounded in two separate assaults in Colombia, including a drone strike on a military helicopter and a car bombing.
Authorities blame dissident factions of the former FARC rebel group for the coordinated violence, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
In Cali, the country’s third most populated city, a vehicle packed with explosives detonated on Thursday near a military aviation school, in an incident that left six people dead and 71 injured, according to the mayor’s office.
Hours earlier, a National Police Black Hawk helicopter participating in a coca leaf crop eradication operation was downed by a drone in the municipality of Amalfi, in the department of Antioquia, killing 12 police officers.
President of Colombia Gustavo Petro blamed the attacks on dissident factions of the now-defunct FARC group that have rejected a 2016 peace agreement to end a prolonged internal conflict that has left more than 450,000 dead in the country.
Petro said on X that the attack on the police helicopter occurred as the aircraft was transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia, in northern Colombia, to eradicate coca leaf crops, the raw material for cocaine.
Antioquia Governor Andres Julian said on social media that a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.
Colombian Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez said that preliminary information indicates the attack caused a fire in the police helicopter.
Petro initially blamed the Gulf Clan, the country’s largest active drug cartel, for the helicopter attack. He asserted that the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the group.
In a later post on social media, Petro shared a photo of a suspect in the car bomb attack near the Colombian Aerospace Force in Cali, saying the person detained by police was a member of the EMC (Estado Mayor Central) – described as a federation of dissidents of the former FARC group – and “subordinate” to drug traffickers.
FARC dissidents, who have rejected a peace agreement with the government, and members of the Gulf Clan operate in the Antioquia area.
Petro later announced that he would request that the Gulf Clan and the armed dissidents be “considered terrorists and pursued anywhere on the planet”.
Coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.
The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares (about 625,000 acres) in 2023, according to the latest report available from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
