AT LEAST 28 DEAD AS INSURGENT ATTACKS COURSE THROUGH COLOMBIA

Last Week, Rebel Group Froze Government Talks

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombia's insurgents killed unarmed townspeople
and clashed with soldiers yesterday in widespread violence that reportedly
left at least 28 people dead.

Also, a bomb packed onto a motorcycle exploded in a town in the heart of
Colombia's cocaine-producing region yesterday, killing one person and
wounding 18, including six police officers.

The bloodshed came four days after the nation's largest rebel group, the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, froze peace talks with the
government aimed at ending the 36-year conflict that takes about 3,000
lives a year.

The bomb exploded in downtown Puerto Asis, in Putumayo province, which has
been blockaded by rebels for two months. There was no immediate claim of
responsibility.

Jacqueline Castaneda, a director of the Puerto Asis hospital, said six of
the wounded were in serious condition.

FARC has clamped a road blockade on Putumayo to protest President Andres
Pastrana's U.S.-backed plan to use army troops to seize lucrative cocaine
crops and eradicate them.

The rebels, and a rival right-wing paramilitary group, "tax" the cocaine
producers and protect the harvests, earning millions of dollars.

U.S. special forces troops have been training three Colombian army
battalions that in coming weeks will try to wrest control of the coca
plantations from the insurgents. Washington is also supplying combat
helicopters for the operation as part of a $1.3 billion aid package.

Yesterday morning in the eastern state of Antioquia, 50 FARC fighters
searching for an escaped kidnap victim killed four people in the town of
Florida after they refused to reveal the location of the fleeing hostage,
said army Maj. Sergio Perez. The fate of the escaped kidnap victim, who was
not identified, was not clear.

The army also alleged that FARC combatants were responsible for killing
between 10 and 15 people inside a farmhouse yesterday morning in the
Antioquian town of Frontino, 215 miles from Bogota. Army Maj. Oscar Anzola
said the rebels apparently believed the victims were collaborators of a
rival right-wing paramilitary group.

Some 50 paramilitary fighters, meanwhile, killed five people in the
northern state of Cesar after accusing them of siding with rebels, national
radio reported. The army and local police could not confirm the attack,
which reportedly occurred in the town of La Loma, 335 miles from the
capital Bogota.

Armed insurgents have killed nearly 1,400 civilians from January to August,
human rights monitors said.

Seeking to retake territory in the western state of Risaralda, soldiers
Friday began attacking FARC fighters in the town of Pueblo Rico, 160 miles
from the capital Bogota. Six rebels and two soldiers have died in the
ongoing clashes, said army spokesman Luis Hernandez.

And in clashes with troops in the southern state of Narino on Friday,
fighters from the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN, killed a
lower-ranking officer and injured three soldiers. The fighting ended
yesterday morning, Hernandez said.