World News | Militants kill 9 soldiers in attack on Colombian army

BOGOTA (Colombia), March 29 (AP) – Colombian militants attacked a military post in a restive region near the country’s border with Venezuela early Wednesday, killing at least nine soldiers and injuring nine others, authorities said. Injuried.

The military did not provide details of the attack in El Carmen in northern Santander state, but said initial assessments indicated it was carried out by the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last active guerrilla group in the country.

Read also | US: Senate introduces bipartisan bill to fix loopholes in H1B, L1 visa programs.

It would be the heaviest attack by the guerrillas since peace talks with the government resumed in November and would give Colombia’s first leftist president Gustavo Petro a chance to bring “comprehensive peace” to the country of 50 million people. Strive to complicate.

Petro condemned the attack, saying in a tweet that those who carried it out were “absolutely far from peace and people”. Seven of those killed were soldiers serving compulsory military service and two were officers, he said.

Read also | UAE: Indian national jumps to death from high-rise building after killing wife and two children in Sharjah.

Colombian military commander General Herde Girard said the military would continue to target the National Liberation Army in the area and would file complaints about “serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.”

Despite a historic peace deal with the larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016, some rural areas of Colombia remain under the control of drug gangs and rebel groups.

Founded in 1964 and originally inspired by the Cuban Revolution, the ELN now has some 2,000 to 4,000 troops in Colombia and neighboring Venezuela. Human rights groups have reported that the group operates drug trafficking routes and illegal gold mines.

In the past, attacks by the National Liberation Army have derailed peace talks. In 2019, ELN claimed a car bombing at a police academy in Bogota killed 22 people, prompting then-President Ivan Duque’s government to suspend all dialogue. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)