8 COPS FOUND DEAD IN COLOMBIA

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Airlifted in U.S.-made combat helicopters,
Colombian troops flew to 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 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.

The army confirmed the deaths of eight police officers and at least
two civilians, and said the death toll was likely to rise as soldiers
secure the area.

"Troops ... found the bodies of eight police officers amid the ruins
of their barracks, which was totally destroyed," said Army Col.
Alberto Ardila, commander of the army's Eighth Brigade, which went to
the scene of the two-day rebel attack.

Security forces found only three survivors of Arboleda's 25-man police
contingent, said Alfonso Rodriguez Guerrero, an officer at national
police headquarters in Bogota, the capital.

Troops and police reinforcements, operating in the dark in a chaotic
situation, were trying to determine the fate of the rest of the
besieged policemen.

Ardila told local radio that two civilians were killed. Rodriguez
Guerrero put the number at three.

The attack by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was
one of 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
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.

U.S. Ambassador Curtis W. Kamman said Colombian security forces
weren't restricted to using the U.S.-made helicopters only in
anti-drug operations.

"These helicopters can be used ... to defend the police and military
forces if they are under attack in a zone where there are
anti-narcotics activities," Kamman was quoted as saying in an
interview on Saturday with ANCOL, the Colombian government's news agency.

However, Arboleda is not believed to be in a region producing cocaine
or heroin.

Some observers say U.S. policy regarding military aid to Colombia is
growing increasingly blurry, and can lead to the United States being
drawn into the South American nation's 35-year civil war. But others
charge that restrictions on the U.S. support are too tight.

This weekend's attack was similar to one mounted by the FARC on July
15 on the southwestern town of Roncesvalles. The rebels besieged the
police station in the town, and after police ran out of ammunition,
the guerrillas allegedly executed 13 of the officers. The deaths drew
criticisms -- including in the U.S. Congress -- that the Blackhawks,
if used, could have saved the policemen.

Under the new U.S. aid package, approved by President Clinton on July
13, Washington will provide 60 more helicopters, including Blackhawks
and Hueys, to Colombian security forces.