U.S. SOLDIERS FEARED DEAD IN COLOMBIA PLANE CRASH

BOGOTA, Colombia - Five American soldiers and two Colombians
were feared dead after a U.S. anti-drug plane crashed into mountains
in a rebel-held area of southern Colombia, top U.S. counternarcotics
official Barry McCaffrey said Monday.

It was thought to be the first time U.S. troops were killed in
Colombia's U.S.-backed drug war. But McCaffrey said the accident would
not undermine Washington's commitment to helping the world's top
cocaine-producing nation stem the tide of narco-trafficking.

``They have located the wreckage and it's under observation,''
McCaffrey told a news conference after meeting Colombian businessmen
in Bogota.

``The evidence so far would indicate that the five brave American
aviators and two Colombia air force officers have probably lost their
lives in a fatal accident,'' he added.

The De Havilland RC-7 reconnaissance aircraft disappeared from radar
screens before dawn Friday as it flew over southeast Colombia -- a
stronghold of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas
and a region rife with illegal plantations of coca leaf, the raw
material for cocaine.

Wreckage has been located at an altitude of about 7,000 feet in
jungle-clad mountains that divide southern Putumayo and Narino
provinces, close to the border with Ecuador, according to Lt. Jane
Campbell, of the U.S. army's Miami-based Southern Command.

Dense fog prevented ground rescue teams from reaching the crash site.
Campbell said no aircraft could land at the site and rescuers would
have slide down on ropes from helicopters in order to obtain ``100
percent confirmation'' that the wreck the De Havilland.

There was no sign marauding FARC rebels, fiercely opposed to
Washington's anti-drug policy, were close to the crash site.

The five U.S. soldiers -- two captains, a warrant officer and two
enlisted men -- who are feared dead were part of a group of about 240
U.S. personnel based in Colombia at any one time, most of them
involved in counterdrug operations.

The crash and McCaffrey's three-day visit came at a critical juncture
for the fight against drugs in Colombia, which saw a two-fold increase
in cocaine production despite receiving $280 million in U.S.
counternarcotics aid this year.

Despite being the world's third-largest recipient of U.S. aid,
Colombia has seen cocaine production double to about 165 metric tons
annually over the last four years and heroin output rise about 20
percent to 6 tons.

U.S. and Colombian officials blame spiraling production on the growing
links of Marxist rebels, and to some extent their right-wing
paramilitary rivals, in the drug trade.

``It's quite clear that drug production is up dramatically and that
many, in particular FARC units, benefit financially from association
with criminal drug organizations,'' McCaffrey said, adding the smaller
National Liberation Army (ELN) and ultra-right death squads were also
involved in drug running.

Colombian authorities estimated the FARC and ELN earned $2.3 billion
from the drug trade between 1991 and 1998 and used most of the
proceeds to buy weapons.

The FARC deny sponsoring narco-trafficking, saying they support
impoverished peasants who have no alternative but to grow coca leaf or
opium poppies and concede they levy a ''revolutionary war tax'' on
drug traffickers.

The FARC, and a number of political analysts, have accused Washington
of meddling in Colombia's counterinsurgency operations under the
pretext of fighting the drug war.