Police say 2 officers killed in northeast Colombia in explosion blamed on guerrilla

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BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — Two police officers were killed Sunday in northeast Colombia in an attack that authorities blamed on the National Liberation Army , a Marxist guerrilla force active since the 1960s.

President Gustavo Petro condemned the killings of a police superintendent and a sub-superintendent in Cúcuta on X, warning that he will increase the number of troops present along the Colombian-Venezuelan border.

The director of the Colombian National Police, Gen. William Ospina, said on social media that there were two “terrorist attacks” in the department of Norte de Santander. One attack claimed the lives of the officers, and in another neighborhood, two soldiers were wounded, he said.

Colombian media outlets published images of the area where the explosion occurred, showing a damaged road.

According to initial investigations, Ospina said the attacks were “retaliation” by the ELN guerrilla force “in response to the police’s offensive actions” against the group.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Colombia is experiencing an intensification of hostilities and a “sharp deterioration of the humanitarian situation,” the organization’s president, Mirjana Spoljaric, said during a recent visit to the country.

The ELN, which has been armed since 1964, was negotiating peace with Petro’s government, but talks broke down after an attack earlier this year that left nearly 100 dead in Catatumbo, also in Norte de Santander.

The ELN is vying for control of the border with Venezuela with the “33rd Front,” one of the dissident groups of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that did not accept the peace agreement signed between the guerrillas and the government in 2016.

On Saturday, another attack with an explosive left seven people injured in Cauca, in Colombia’s southwestern region.

Petro said the indictment against the top leader of the FARC dissidents, known as “Iván Mordisco,” and other leaders of the group, whom he accuses of “narco-terrorism,” is ready for the International Criminal Court. He did not indicate when it would be formally filed.