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.
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