COLOMBIA: U.S. TROOPS NOT IN COMBAT

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- With the United States training Colombian troops,
the country's defense minister made assurances that U.S. troops have no
direct role in Colombia's guerrilla war.

``This is a war that is being fought by Colombian soldiers and police,''
Defense Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez told reporters. ``There are foreign
military personnel working as advisers, but they are not on the battle front.''

Under Washington's $1.3 billion, mostly military aid initiative -- which is
aimed to combat the entrenched cocaine trade that inflames the conflict --
U.S. troops are barred from accompanying Colombian soldiers into combat.

As the effort gets under way, about 80 U.S. Special Forces troops are
training a Colombian army battalion at the Larandia army base in southern
Colombia, near an area where government troops have clashed with rebels in
the past.

In October, a commander of the largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia -- or FARC -- warned that ``all Colombian or foreign
military personnel who are in the combat zones will be military targets.''

``The FARC wants to make people believe that (the U.S. trainers) are
participating in the armed conflict, and that's not true,'' Ramirez said.
He added the Americans will be protected in the event of any ``terrorist
activity.''

Two years ago a U.S. army reconnaissance plane crashed while on an
intelligence-gathering mission over Colombia, killing five U.S. soldiers
and two Colombians. Several American pilots participating as private
contractors in missions to destroy drug crops have also died in crashes.

Columbia's 36-year-old internal conflict involves leftist rebels, rightist
paramilitaries and government forces. It claims about 3,000 lives war,
mostly civilians caught in the cross fire.