Pubdate: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 Source: Inquirer (PA) Copyright: 2001 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc Contact: http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/home/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340 Author: Jared Kotler, Associated Press Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?203 (Terrorism) U.S. TO ADD ANTITERROR AID TO ANTIDRUG EFFORT IN COLOMBIA Training and equipment for elite anti-kidnapping and bomb squads are among plans, an official said. BOGOTA, Colombia - The United States is planning to go beyond helping Colombia battle drugs by providing counterterrorist aid as part of the new global war on terrorism, Ambassador Anne Patterson said yesterday. The Bush administration plans to train and equip elite anti-kidnapping and bomb squads, assist civilian and military counterterror investigators, and help Colombia guard its oil pipelines from rebel bomb attacks, Patterson said in an interview. "Certainly, Sept. 11 has enabled us to do more of these kinds of things," she said of the broadened assistance. The assistance would be in addition to a U.S. military aid plan aimed at helping Colombian security forces fight leftist rebels and right- wing paramilitaries engaged in drug trafficking. The new, broader aid could fuel accusations of U.S. "mission creep" in Colombia, which is embroiled in a 37-year civil war. Patterson stressed that fighting drugs remained the main U.S. focus. But she said that "there's no question we are now focusing more on terrorism in Colombia" since the Sept. 11 attacks that killed several thousand in New York, Washington and Western Pennsylvania. "Colombia has 10 percent of the terrorist groups in the world, according to our list," she said, referring to the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations. Two leftist Colombian rebel groups and a rightist paramilitary faction are on the list. Patterson said the United Sates already had planned to aid Colombian anti-kidnapping squads before the Sept. 11 attacks. That plan and other antiterrorist efforts will now be "intensifying," she said. Rebels are responsible for the majority of the more than 3,000 kidnappings reported annually in Colombia, and have been waging a sabotage campaign against oil pipelines. The nation's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has kidnapped and killed U.S. citizens in the South American nation. Patterson did not put a price tag on the expanding counterterror aid or give further details. She said the additional aid probably would not require congressional approval. The United States also is increasing its scrutiny of landowner-backed paramilitary groups that are waging a massacre campaign against suspected leftists. Patterson said the State Department planned to cancel the visas of five Colombians believed to be helping finance the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). She declined to provide more information on the five. She said the U.S. Embassy had information on at least 45 other alleged AUC financiers and was checking to see whether any of them had U.S. visas. As part of the counterterror fight, the U.S. government also is trying to trace foreign bank accounts managed by the guerrillas and paramilitaries or their civilian backers, Patterson said. U.S. antidrug aid includes training for Colombian counternarcotics troops and donations of helicopters and crop dusters for an aerial eradication offensive against drug plantations guarded by rebels and paramilitaries. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh