COMBAT BETWEEN TROOPS AND GUERRILLAS IN COLOMBIA INTENSIFIES

BOGOTA (AP) - A car-bomb exploded outside a police station on the Colombian
capital's outskirts Sunday, injuring a civilian, amid rural clashes between
troops and guerrillas that left at least 17 dead over the weekend, police
said.

The bomb was intended for a military truck carrying soldiers as it passed
through a working-class neighbourhood in southern Bogota, said Alfredo
Salgado, assistant director of Colombia's national police.

But the explosives, packed into a Fiat sedan fewer than 20 metres from the
police station, exploded minutes after the truck passed by, damaging several
homes and buildings and injuring one person, Salgado said. The person was
not identified.

Police attributed the attack to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
the country's largest guerrilla group.

The explosion came amid a weekend of fighting in different parts of Colombia
that has left at least eight soldiers and nine guerrillas dead, police said.

A weekend battle that was still raging Sunday between about 500 guerillas
and government soldiers trying to reclaim a rebel-controlled town has killed
at least two soldiers and seven rebels, said Gen. Heran Cadavid, head of the
army's Sixth Brigade.

The fighting broke out Saturday afternoon when soldiers moved into
Roncesvalles, a village about 200 kilometres southwest of Bogota.

Guerrillas also laid siege to a hydroelectric plant in Anchicacaya, 345
kilometres west of Bogota, on Saturday night. Five soldiers were killed and
seven wounded as they pursued the insurgents, the army announced in a news
release Sunday night. One more solider remains missing.

Meanwhile, the country's second guerrilla group, the National Liberation
Army on Sunday was concluding a week-long campaign of attacks to protest a
$1.3-billion US anti-drug trafficking aid package for Colombia that
President Bill Clinton signed into law last month.

The guerrillas threatened last Sunday to set up roadblocks on major highways
and stage attacks for a week to protest the aid package.

One soldier and two guerrillas were killed in clashes Saturday night at a
pair of roadblocks near the northeastern towns Maceo and Segovia, police
said.

Police said guerrillas also kidnapped dozens of people, destroyed 37
electric-power stations, torched 69 cars and trucks and damaged 70 highways
during their week of violence.