At least two soldiers died and 26 were wounded in a bomb attack on Tuesday in a military base in Colombia, the army said, blaming left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas who have been in off-and-on peace talks with the government.
Recall that the ELN has intensified attacks on military targets since August, when it decided not to renew a ceasefire that had been in force with army forces since 2023 as part of negotiations held fitfully since the previous year.
The head of the armed forces, General Luis Emilio Cardozo, said that the explosives were detonated in a dump truck, The deal with FARC aimed at ending the longest-running war in the Americas, which had claimed over 200,000 lives since the 1960s.
But holdout FARC splinter groups and the ELN have refused to make peace.
Reports has it that, the ELN is the biggest of the armed groups still active in Colombia since the government made peace with a much bigger Marxist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in 2016.
Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, vowed at his election in 2022 to bring total peace to the country by engaging various groups in dialogue, including the ELN, but in August, Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez said the military would resume operations against ELN after the ceasefire ran out, as the rebels opted not to renew it.
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