COLOMBIA REBELS SET SIGHTS ON U.S. TROOPS

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Marxist rebels issued a warning on Friday to U.S.
soldiers based in Colombia, saying they will be declared a ``military
target'' if they take any front-line combat role in the nation's
long-running war.

``The FARC declares United States soldiers a military target,'' said the
headline of a statement distributed via the Internet by the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia.

The 17,000-strong rebel army, known by its Spanish-language acronym, is
Latin America's largest and oldest guerrilla force. It has a dominant
presence in roughly 40 percent of Colombia, a country a U.S. military
spokesman described on Friday as among the most treacherous places anywhere
around the globe.

``All Colombian or foreign military personnel in combat zones will be a
military target of the FARC,'' said the statement, quoting senior rebel
commander Andres Paris.

``At the moment FARC guerrillas do not wish to reveal if there are concrete
plans to attack United States military bases in the country,'' it said.

But it added that several such bases, where U.S. military personnel are
located, were ``very close to regions where guerrillas recently staged
intense combat that caused government forces important casualties.''

U.S. and Colombian officials have said repeatedly that American troops will
not be involved directly in the Andean nation's escalating war against the
drug trade and the leftist guerrillas they accuse of protecting and
profiting from the trafficking.

In Miami, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command -- which oversees U.S.
military operations across most of Latin America -- reiterated that American
forces were ``limited strictly to counter-drug and training activities'' in
Colombia.

But the spokesman, Steve Lucas, acknowledged U.S. troops were in ``an
inherently dangerous business'' in Colombia and said the FARC threat would
not be ignored.

``We try to take the security and protection of our people very seriously,
try to ensure that they are doing their training activities and other
support activities in only the safe regions,'' Lucas said.

``But the entire nation of Colombia and its border regions have become the
most dangerous places in the Western Hemisphere if not the world, because of
the actions of these extralegal organizations so we're sharing the risks.''

Train Special Battalions

Under a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package for Colombia approved by the U.S.
Congress in July, lawmakers opened the way for the number of American
advisers in Colombia to be doubled to about 500 at any one time, to train
special battalions in fighting drugs, and indirectly, guerrillas.

But the package contains a clause that would allow the U.S. president to
wave the cap for 90 days in the event of an ''imminent involvement'' of U.S.
forces in hostilities.

The FARC has branded the aid package, consisting of mostly military aid, as
counterinsurgency assistance thinly disguised as anti-drug aid, and warned
repeatedly of Washington's slide into a military quagmire.

The latest FARC statement was similar to several others the group has issued
over the past year, warning U.S. military advisers against a deeper,
Vietnam-style involvement in an internal conflict that has taken 35,000
lives over the past decade.

America's involvement in Vietnam began with the dispatch of military
advisers and led to the deaths of about 58,000 U.S. troops.

A Gallup poll published last month in a leading Colombian weekly news
magazine, Semana, said 56 percent of Colombians favored U.S. military
intervention to resolve the country's armed conflict.