POLICE THWART COLOMBIA ATTACK PLAN

BOGOTA, Colombia--Police thwarted an apparent assassination attempt against
a U.S. senator and U.S. ambassador who were visiting the most dangerous
town in Colombia, a Colombian police commander said Friday.

Hours before Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson
flew into the town of Barrancabermeja on Thursday, police discovered two
shrapnel-wrapped land mines alongside the road leading from the airport to
the town and arrested a suspected rebel, said police Col. Jose Miguel Villar.

The land mines each carried a 6.6 -pound explosive charge, were attached to
cables and a detonator and were ready to be set off, Villar said in a phone
interview from Barrancabermeja, 155 miles north of Bogota, the capital.

Bernardo Alvarez Duarte, a suspected member of the rebel National
Liberation Army, or ELN, was arrested at the site, Villar said.

"If the bomb had gone off, it could have caused immense damage," Villar
said. "It would have spread shrapnel over a wide area and could have taken
out 10 or 15 people."

Patterson said she had received sketchy reports about the bomb as the
delegation departed Barrancabermeja.

Many residents of Barrancabermeja had known the U.S. delegation was going
to arrive. But security forces had kept confidential plans to transfer the
party from the airport to the town by helicopter. Even if the bombs had
exploded, the delegation would not have gone anywhere near them.

Villar said the Americans were probably the target of the bomb, but could
not absolutely confirm it. Alvarez, the arrested man, was being questioned
for further information.

Washington supports the Colombian military in its fight against the ELN and
a bigger rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Barrancabermeja is the most violent town in Colombia, with almost 500
politically related murders this year alone, according to human rights
activists. Right-wing paramilitary squads and rebels have been preying on
the townspeople and fighting for control of the region.

Wellstone, a second-term senator and a member of the foreign relations
committee, arrived in Colombia on Tuesday night and was departing on
Friday. He visited Barrancabermeja to lend support to human rights
activists there.