At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack | World News

Not less than 17 individuals have been killed after a automotive bombing and an assault on a police helicopter in Colombia, officers have stated.

Authorities within the southwest metropolis of Cali stated a car loaded with explosives detonated close to a army aviation college, killing 5 individuals and injuring greater than 30.

Authorities stated at the very least 12 died within the assault on a helicopter transporting personnel to an space in Antioquia in northern Colombia, the place they have been to destroy coca leaf crops – the uncooked materials used within the manufacturing of cocaine.

Antioquia governor Andres Julian stated a drone attacked the helicopter because it flew over coca leaf crops.

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed each incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He stated the plane was focused in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.

Who’re FARC, and are they nonetheless energetic?

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the biggest of the nation’s insurgent teams, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.

It was shaped in 1964 because the army wing of the Colombian Communist Celebration, finishing up a collection of assaults in opposition to political and financial targets.

In 2016, after more than 50 years of civil war, FARC rebels and the Colombian government signed a peace deal.

It formally ceased to be an armed group the next 12 months – however some small dissident teams rejected the settlement and refused to disarm.

In keeping with a report by Colombia’s Reality Fee in 2022, combating between authorities forces, FARC, and the militant group Nationwide Liberation Military had killed round 450,000 individuals between 1985 and 2018.

Each FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan function in Antioquia.

It comes as a report from the United Nations Workplace on Medicine and Crime discovered that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.

The realm underneath cultivation reached a file 253,000 hectares in 2023, in line with the UN’s newest out there report.