BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — At least 16 soldiers were wounded in an attack on a military base in eastern Colombia, the Colombian military said Tuesday, as tensions between the Colombian government and one of the country’s largest remaining rebel groups mount.
Colombia’s top military commander, Admiral Francisco Cubides, attributed the attack to the National Liberation Army (ELN), a rebel group that ended a ceasefire in August with the Colombian government, but is still involved in peace talks aimed at ending more than five decades of conflict.
According to Cubides, the group fired homemade rockets from the back of a truck parked at a base in Puerto Jordan, a small town in Colombia’s Arauca province.
“They are trying to attract attention so that the government agrees to their demands in the negotiations,” Cubides said at a news conference.
The ELN was founded in the early 1960s by union leaders and university students, inspired by the Cuban Revolution. The group has an estimated 6,000 fighters in Colombia and Venezuela and finances itself through drug trafficking and illegal gold mining.
Recently, the ELN has been spreading into rural areas abandoned by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the major rebel group that signed a peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016.
After being elected president two years ago, President Gustavo Petro quickly initiated peace talks with the ELN and several smaller armed groups led by a policy known as total peace.
But talks with the ELN have fallen apart when the group continues to kidnap and tax civilians in areas under its control. The ELN has also expressed frustration over a recent attempt by the Colombian government to open separate peace negotiations with one of its splinter groups in southwestern Colombia.
A ceasefire between the government and the ELN expired in late August and was not renewed. Since then, the group has stepped up attacks on military targets and oil pipelines in Colombia’s Arauca province.
In a message published on X, Colombia’s Defense Ministry said it would act with “firmness and determination to restore security and stability” in Arauca province. ___