5 AMERICANS AMONG 10 SEIZED IN OIL FIELD

QUITO, ECUADOR Troops scoured Ecuador's Amazonian jungles Friday in search
of gunmen involved in the kidnapping of at least 10 foreign workers,
including five Americans, during a raid on oil fields.

Soldiers found the helicopter used by the gunmen to flee with their
captives, the government said. It had been abandoned near the San Miguel
River, which divides Ecuador from Colombia.

There was no sign of the captives or the gunmen, who Ecuador's government
said were Colombian rebels who acted in retaliation for Plan Colombia, an
anti-drug trafficking initiative backed by $1.3 billion in U.S. aid.

The kidnappers were thought to have fled into Colombia, where leftist
rebels and right-wing paramilitaries have been engaged in a furious battle
for control of cocaine production in the border region.

Foreign-owned oil companies began evacuating their foreign personnel.