COLOMBIAN REBELS BESIEGE TOWN

Bogota, Colombia — Flying in U.S.-made combat helicopters, Colombian troops
were ferried into a remote mountain town Sunday to battle rebels who
attacked a police station and claimed to have killed nearly two dozen
officers.

Just before dusk, 150 army troops and national police flew into the town of
Arboleda aboard U.S.-made Blackhawk and Huey helicopters, said national
police chief Gen. Ernesto Gilibert. Some troops also arrived on foot and
clashed with rebels as they approached the town.

Gilibert said he had not received official word on whether any of the 25
police in Arboleda had survived the attack launched Saturday morning by
hundreds of rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"We have our hopes," Gilibert told journalists in the capital, Bogota.

But national police Col. Mario Gutierrez told The Associated Press, "It
looks like there have been many killed."

The attack could be the bloodiest since the United States approved $1.3
billion in aid to battle leftist rebels and other armed groups who are
involved in narcotics production.

Controversy has arisen over whether U.S.-supplied combat helicopters, which
provide security for planes fumigating drug crops in Colombia, should be
used in counterinsurgency operations.

Gutierrez said radio transmissions from the besieged police officers had
been cut after midnight, about 15 hours after the attack began on Saturday
morning. Rebels told a local photojournalist who tried to enter the town
Sunday morning that they had killed 23 police officers.

"Communications with Arboleda have been severed and there is no way to
verify this information, but we fear the worst," said police Col. Norberto
Pelaez, police commander of Caldas province, where Arboleda is located.

Low cloud cover prevented reinforcements from arriving until late Sunday.
Troops also spent hours hiking over twisting mountain trails to Arboleda,
located 90 miles northwest of Bogota.