World

Fighting Flares In Columbia

September 2, 2000 / 9:46 PM EDT / CBS/AP

A Colombian warplane crashed Saturday amid heavy fighting between leftist rebels and government forces, killing seven airmen, the military said.

In addition, at least eight government soldiers and 12 rebels died in the ground combat at a communications complex on Mount Montezuma, 155 miles (250 kilometers) west of the capital, Bogota.

The clash was the bloodiest since U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Colombia on Wednesday to support President Andres Pastrana's fight against drug traffickers and leftist rebels who protect drug crops. Pastrana's government is hopeful that U.S. aid and Clinton's visit will help defeat drug cartel-backed rebels who control much of that tropical country's jungles.

The U.S.-made AC-47 Vietnam-era gunship outfitted with .50-caliber machine guns crashed into an 11,200-foot-high mountain at about 5 a.m. as it returned to base from the fighting, the Colombian air force said in a communiqué. There were no survivors, and all those aboard were Colombian, the air force said.

Air Force Gen. Jairo Garcia insisted the plane was not shot down. He said poor visibility may have been a factor, because the crash happened just before dawn in cloudy weather.

The plane, which was used extensively by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War and was known as "Puff the Magic Dragon," had been providing fire support for the ground troops.

The Pentagon had equipped the plane with Forward-Looking Infrared Sensors, or FLIRS, and night-vision goggles, said Gen. Hector Velasco, Colombia's air force chief. The pilots had been trained in night-flying either by U.S. military pilots or by other Colombian pilots who had received training from the Americans, Velasco told reporters.

The fighting began Friday afternoon at the communications complex, which controls cellular and other telephone links to much of western Colombia.

About 600 rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia attacked about 50 government soldiers at the complex, said Gen. Fernando Tapias, commander in chief of Colombian military forces. The rebels were repelled by the government forces and reinforcements from the provincial capital, Pereira, military officials said.

On Saturday, President Pastrana, Tapias and other military brass visited the communications complex aboard a U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopter. Tapias said government troops were still clashing with retreating rebels nearby.

Army helicopters ferried some of the rebel dead to a base in Pereira. Five rebel corpses — four men and a woman — were laid out on the grass under a huge sheet. The number of confirmed rebel dead stood at 12.

Tapias called the rebel assault an "all-around failure" because they failed to capture the complex. Up to 50 rebels may have died, he said.

Five government soldiers based at the communications complex were killed in the fighting, said army Gen. Nestor Ramirez Mejia. In addtion, battalion commander Lt. Col. Jorge Sanchez Rodriguez and two of his soldiers died when rebels ambushed them as they rushed to reinforce the complex, he said.

The rebel group, called by their Spanish acronym, FARC, have been fighting Colombia's government for some 36 years. They control vast tracts of southern jungle, financing their insurgency by taxing peasants who grow drug crops and protecting drug traffickers.

Under a new $1.3 billion U.S. aid package, Washington is sending 60 combat helicopters to government security forces and elite U.S. troops are training Colombian anti-narcotics army troops.