Colombia<\/a> were on high alert on Saturday after several explosive attacks and failed attempts to target public infrastructure.<\/p>\nNo one was injured in the attacks, which included a shooting at a police station in the rural area of \u200b\u200bJamundi and an attack on a civil aviation radar facility in El Tambo, where authorities shot down three drones packed with explosives.<\/p>\n
On Friday, two vehicles packed with explosives were detonated near military units in Cali and Palmira, causing material damage.<\/p>\n
An increase in violence in that area \u2013 an area disputed by illegal armed groups linked to drug trafficking \u2013 prompted the mobilization of high-ranking officials on Saturday. The delegation, led by Defense Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez and including regional governors and local officials, met in Palmira.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese criminals want to instill fear, but we will respond firmly,\u201d Sanchez wrote on Twitter.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Francesca Toro, the governor of Valle del Cauca, called on the national government to provide “immediate assistance”.<\/p>\n
In a message posted on Twitter, Toro called for the reinforcement of public security forces, increased intelligence operations and “decisive action” against crime in the event of an “increase in the level of terrorism”.<\/p>\n
According to authorities, Cauca and the Valle del Cauca serve as an important hub for the illegal activities of illegal armed groups. These groups are competing for control of the sea and river access routes to the port of Buenaventura \u2013 a major transit point used to smuggle drugs into Central America and Europe.<\/p>\n
The government has blamed the attacks on the Jaime Mart\u00ednez faction, a dissident group of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia operating in the region that did not comply with a peace deal signed with the state in 2016.<\/p>\n
The government is also offering a reward of more than one million dollars for information leading to the capture of “Marlon”, identified as the leader of a dissident group in the area.<\/p>\n
The previous day, local authorities had offered more than $14,000 for information leading to the identification and location of those responsible for the attacks in Cali and Palmira.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bogota Colombia — officers in the south west Colombia were on high alert on Saturday after several explosive attacks and failed attempts to target public infrastructure. No one was injured in the attacks, which included a shooting at a police station in the rural area of \u200b\u200bJamundi and an attack on a civil aviation radar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1912,313,1559,3020,549,8280,5086],"class_list":{"0":"post-98099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-alert","9":"tag-attacks","10":"tag-authorities","11":"tag-colombia","12":"tag-infrastructure","13":"tag-southwestern","14":"tag-violent"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98100,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98099\/revisions\/98100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}