IRA FIGURES ARRESTED IN COLOMBIA

BOGOTA, Colombia -- The rebel safe haven was supposed be a "laboratory for
peace," but Colombian officials say members of the Irish Republican Army
were training Colombian rebels in terrorist tactics there.

The accusations, leveled Monday following the arrests of three alleged IRA
members in Bogota, prompted fears of a turn to urban terrorism by
Colombia's largest insurgency, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC.

They were also bound to stir up further criticims of President Andres
Pastrana's decision to cede 16,200 square miles of Colombian territory as a
peace gesture to the rebels.

Announcing the arrests at a news conference, Defense Minister Gustavo Bell
said three men were caught Saturday after spending five weeks inside the
FARC-held demilitarized zone training rebels in the use of explosives.

In return, officials said the FARC could be providing the IRA with anything
from drugs to money to black market arms - their first such alliance.

Officials said tests on the clothing of the three turned up traces of four
different kinds of explosives, as well as cocaine and amphetamines. FARC
rebels are involved in cocaine production in Colombia, which earns them
millions of dollars in profits.

The 16,000-strong rebel army has mostly used crude explosive devices in
Colombia's civil war, now in its 37th year. But with the United States
beefing up the Colombian military with training, weapons and combat
helicopters, a subsequent ratcheting up of rebel attacks has long been
expected.

"Day by day, Colombia's subversive groups are moving more into terrorism,"
Colombia's army commander, Gen. Jorge Mora said.

Mora said British officials have confirmed that the three suspects were
members of an IRA unit that specializes in explosives and arms manufacturing.

The three residents of Northern Ireland entered Colombia with false
passports at the end of June and the beginning of July, the officials said.
Two of the men have been identified as Martin McCauley and James Monaghan.

The third member of the group, considered the most high-ranking of the
three, has still not been identified. He traveled under the name David
Bracken, believed to be a pseudonym, and is said to be the only one who
speaks Spanish.

In a video shown to journalists, the three men stood stone-faced before the
camera in Bogota's military police base, where they are being held. None of
them spoke.

The Colombian defense minister said his government was taking steps to
prepare a possible handover to British authorities. But the British
government had not given any indication it would seek their extradition or
deportation.

An official from Colombia's federal prosecutor's office said the three
could also be tried here for providing training in terrorist tactics, and
could receive jail terms of up to 20 years if convicted.

The three were captured after getting off a flight at Bogota's
international airport from San Vicente del Caguan, the largest town in the
demilitarized zone. They had intended to board a plane bound for Paris.

Rebel spokesman Raul Reyes, reached by the phone from the DMZ, refused to
comment on the arrests. There was no immediate comment from the IRA, either.

Pastrana declared the demilitarized zone a "laboratory for peace" when he
ceded it to the FARC. But ongoing rebel attacks and the guerrillas' alleged
use of the enclave to stage attacks, conduct military training and stash
kidnap victims have soured many Colombians to the peace process.

The FARC, with its huge earnings from cocaine production and kidnappings,
is considered a largely self-sufficient group. However, armed forces chief
Gen. Fernando Tapias said the military had received past reports of
training from Venezuelan and Cuban "terrorists", and had noted growing
coincidences between terror tactics used by Colombian rebels, the IRA and
Spain's armed Basque group ETA.

He said the FARC had already copied an IRA tool in developing devastating
homemade missiles it uses in attack on towns and villages.

"Every war is going to get resources from outside elements," Tom Cash of
Kroll Associates, a New York-based security consultant firm said from his
Miami office. "The IRA is global in its arms and explosives networks, and I
don't see why anyone would be surprised to see that they are assisting the
FARC."