CIA agents killed in Colombia [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

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aram>HREF="HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK"HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------  1. CIA agents killed or captured in Colombia   2. Colombia rebels kill and seize Americans   3. One American Killed, Three Others Captivated in Colombia    CIA agents killed or captured in Colombia   By Jeremy McDermott, The Daily Telegraph (UK), 15/02/2003  Two Central Intelligence Agency operatives have been captured by  Marxist guerrillas in Colombia, it appeared yesterday, while another  two were dead, perhaps assassinated, after a light aircraft they  were travelling in crash-landed.  United States officials were prepared only to admit that one of their  aircraft, carrying four American citizens and a Colombian, was forced to make an emergency landing in the guerrilla-dominated southern  province of Caqueta.  "Somewhere during the flight, the engine cut out and they were  looking for a place to put down," said a State Department spokesman,  Chip Barclay.  Sources in the Colombian defence ministry have indicated there  was more to the situation, but said they were prevented from  commenting officially as the United States has imposed a media  blackout and taken over the operation.  Officials from the prosecutor-general's office who flew over the  site said two foreigners' bodies could be seen.  A source at the defence ministry, who insistedon anonymity, said  that the bodies each had a shot to the head, while the other three  people on board, two more Americans and a Colombian army officer,  were missing, presumed kidnapped by the guerrillas.  He also said that the Americans were CIA contractors on an anti- drug intelligence mission. "We were on the scene within 30 minutes  of the crash," said the defence source.  "The survivors would have known we would come for them as there  is a military base with helicopters very close. So we must assume  they are in the hands of the Farc [Revolutionary Armed Forces of  Colombia]."  The United States stepped up its involvement in the 39-year civil  conflict under President George W Bush, who has embraced the  battered Andean nation in his war on terrorism. Three of Colombia's  warring factions, including the Farc, are on the White House's  terrorism list.  - Suspected rebels planning to assassinate President Alvaro Ulribe  with a large bomb detonated it yesterday when police discovered it,  killing 15 people and wounding 30 others. The bomb was packed into  a car near the airport in the southern city of Neiva. Nine police  officers were among the dead.    Colombia rebels kill and seize Americans  BBC (UK), 15 February, 2003  Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has said an American and a  Colombian were shot in cold blood, after a light plane came down in  an area controlled by left-wing FARC rebels.   The four Americans and one Colombian were all reportedly alive when  their single-engine Cessna came down in the jungles of Caqueta  province.   FARC rebels reached the survivors before local army units could find  the plane, and killed the two "execution-style, in cold blood",  according to General Jorge Enrique Mora, Colombia's senior military commander.   It is the first time during the four-decade Colombian civil war that  an American working for the US Government has been killed by rebels.   The other three Americans have been taken hostage.   "We demand that the crew members be released unharmed immediately,"  said a US State Department spokesman.   US officials said that the men were "civilian specialist contractors",  but the BBC correspondent in Bogota says they were believed to be  working with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).   Failed landing  The two bodies have now been taken to a nearby Colombian military  base for identification.   A Colombian military source quoted by Reuters news agency said that  one man had a bullet wound in the head, and the other had been shot  in the chest.   It was earlier reported that both the dead men were Americans.   The plane crashed near Florencia, Caqueta Province, 380 kilometres  (235 miles) south of the capital Bogota, at 0900 (1400GMT) on  Thursday.   It came down just minutes before a scheduled landing, Colombia's  Civil Aviation agency said.   "We believe it had engine trouble and it was attempting to make an  emergency landing in Florencia," a US State Department official in Washington said.   Rebel control   Colombia's rebel groups have a long history of abducting people  for ransom.   While Colombian Government forces largely control the region's  towns, rebels still hold sway over much of the countryside.   The US actively supports the Colombian Government's anti-drug  operations in the coca fields around Florencia, as well as  combating the rebels.   In July 1999, an American spy plane monitoring the skies and  intercepting communications traffic crashed into a mountainside  in Colombia, killing the seven men on board - five of them US  military personnel.    http://www.islam-online.net/english/news/2003-02/15/article14.shtml One American Killed, Three Others Captivated in Colombia BOGOTA, February 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) ­ For the first  time in war-torn Colombia, a U.S. anti-drug plane was downed this week, leaving a U.S. national and a Colombian official dead and  three surviving U.S. nationals in hostage, investigators said.  Rescuers found the charred Cessna plane in southern Colombia late  Thursday, and the bodies of two of its five passengers nearby. One had been shot in the head and the other in the chest.  And while authorities in both Washington and Bogota said the plane  crashed due to engine failure, sources close to the investigation said it came under machine gun fire from the ground prior to  crashing.  Three others on board, all U.S. nationals, were kidnapped by  guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),  officials told Agence France-Presse on Saturday, February 15.  Officials had earlier said both of the dead were U.S. nationals.  The U.S. citizens in Bogota had long been targets, because of  the enormous military assistance America offers the Colombian  government. Britain had recently started "moving into the firing  line" after giving the government military support in the form of  army training.  The British Embassy in Bogota was closed late in December following  a "specific threat". The U.S. Embassy in the town also scaled down  its operation to provide emergency services only amid reports that the threat involved possible attacks by left-wing groups rather  than al-Qaeda network, the BBC News Online reported.  "What we are seeing is Britain and the U.S. standing firmly behind President Uribe and getting stuck into this bloody civil conflict," the correspondent of the network believed.  The single-engine Cessna 208 was on an anti-drug mission in the  rebel-dominated southern province of Caqueta, government sources  said.  On Friday, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe condemned the killings  in remarks in the western Colombian city of Manizales, and said an  American and a Colombian had been killed.  Columbia Minister of Defense flew to Washington on Monday to seek  more aid for his war-torn country. The U.S. has already provided  Colombia with about two billion dollars in recent years in military aid to fight drug smuggling and illegal armed groups fighting in a  four-decade war.  "Engine Failure"  The U.S. State Department in Washington confirmed the two deaths  but declined to give further information on the rest of the plane's occupants, citing security.  More than 500 U.S. soldiers and 300 U.S. civilian advisers are in  Colombia allegedly working to eradicate more than 140,000 hectares  (345,950 acres) of coca crops.  "Two bodies, one American and one Colombian found near the wreckage  were taken to the Colombian military base in Lorandia for positive  identification and to determine the cause of death," a department  official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.  "We are aware of reports in the press that one of Colombia's  terrorist groups may be holding crew members captive," the official said. "We cannot confirm the whereabouts of any of the crew at this  time."  "If these reports are accurate, however, we demand the crew members  be released unharmed immediately," the official said.  The State Department said that those aboard the plane were U.S.- contracted experts conducting a routine mission and added that the  plane crashed because of engine failure.  Colombian army officials were conducting a massive search effort to  find the kidnapped survivors of the crash.  Florencia, the capital of Caqueta province, is located in an area  where the FARC, Colombia's largest rebel group, is active.  The city is also located near the Tres Esquinas base, which is home  to three Colombian anti-drug battalions, including more than 2,000  troops trained by the U.S. military, as well as a police force  charged with the aerial fumigation of Colombia's illegal coca crops, the plants from which cocaine is made.  Colombia is the world's leading cocaine producer, with an output of  some 580 tons a year, much of which ends up on the lucrative U.S.  market. 

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