CAR BOMB KILLS 7 IN COLOMBIA, RECALLS DRUG LORDS' TERRORS

MEDELLIN, Colombia -- A car bombing that ripped through an upscale
nightclub district in Colombia's second-largest city, killing seven people
and injuring 138, has brought back memories of a terror campaign waged here
by drug lords a decade ago.

Young business executives and college students out drinking and dancing --
as well as street vendors -- were among victims of the explosion Thursday
night that sent flames into the air and shrapnel spraying in all directions
in the city of Medellin.

Police said plastic explosives packed in a Renault sedan were detonated by
remote control beside a park surrounded by discos and open-air cafes.

The attack was the second car bombing in two weeks in Colombia and the
second this year in Medellin. President Andres Pastrana told the Associated
Press it may be related to a spiraling feud between paramilitary militias
and a Medellin-based organized-crime gang.

Pastrana flew to Medellin on Friday and planted a tree in the park where
the bomb went off. "United, we will defeat the violent ones," he declared
before heading into a closed-door security summit with local officials.

Armed forces chief Gen. Fernando Tapias called the bombing a "brutal and
criminal act," and called for Congress to pass tougher anti-terrorist laws.

Police on Friday cordoned off Medellin's tree-lined El Poblado district,
where city workers swept glass and paved over the large crater left by the
bomb.

At the chic Cafe Orleans, where three people seated on an outdoor terrace
were killed instantly, manager John Mario Vallejo remembered seeing a huge
flame and then watching people scream and run in panic through a cloud of
smoke and dust. "It was as though the atomic bomb had gone off," he said.

Among those killed at the cafe was Liliana Gonzalez, a Bogota
brokerage-house employee who was celebrating her 30th birthday with friends
in her native Medellin. Foreign currency trading was halted for five
minutes Friday in her honor.

Another of the dead was Hernan Dario Restrepo, a 22-year-old man who sold
gourmet crepes from a cart along with his girlfriend, who is hospitalized.

Six people were killed immediately, and a seventh victim died early Friday.
The explosion blew out windows 200 yards in every direction.

Coming two weeks after a car bombing in Cali -- and three days after
paramilitary forces abducted 200 plantation workers -- the blast
underscored the growing insecurity in the South American country beset by
high crime, drug trafficking and a 37-year civil war.

For the people of Medellin, it brought back chilling memories of the terror
campaigns waged here during the 1980s and early 1990s by the Medellin
cocaine cartel and its notorious leader, Pablo Escobar. Hundreds died in
bombings aimed at pressuring the government against extraditing drug lords.