U.S. BANS TROOPS FROM REBEL ZONES

Pentagon officials, seeking to limit U.S. involvement in Colombia's
conflict, already have banned U.S. troops from guerrilla territory.

By order of Secretary of Defense William Cohen, the 100 or so Special
Forces trainers now in the country on any given day are prohibited
from going on missions with Colombia's anti-drug battalions.

Instead they remain primarily in three places: Tolemeida, the
Colombians' major special forces training base near Bogota, and at two
bases in the coca growing area, Tres Esquinas and Larandia, 50 miles
from the zone controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
or FARC.

There they live and work behind "barbed wire, machine guns, barking
dogs," a senior Pentagon official said.

The trainers arrive on three-month temporary rotations. They are flown
to the bases by U.S. military aircraft, wear U.S. uniforms and teach
basic light infantry courses -- map reading, land navigation skills,
small unit tactics -- until U.S. forces fly them back to the United
States.

The Pentagon official said the military is mindful of the possibility
the trainers will come under attack. "Everyone in Colombia is
vulnerable to attack by the FARC," he said. ". . . Colombia is a very
dangerous, violent place. It's very bad."

But U.S. intelligence estimates have found no evidence that the FARC
want to engage the Americans directly.

And intelligence officials believe the guerrillas are unlikely to
target the huge bases where the Americans are housed, noting they have
favored hit-and-run assaults on small five-to 10-member police
outposts on the fringes of so-called FARC-landia, the rebel-controlled
zone.