REBELS SLASH COLOMBIAN ARMY IN FIERCE CLASHES

Bogota, Colombia (AP) -- In another bloody setback for the Colombian army,
dozens of soldiers were killed and captured in clashes with leftist rebels in
northwestern Colombia that raged throughout the weekend.

General Martin Carreno, commander of the army's 17th Brigade involved in the
combat, said at least 60 soldiers and rebels died and 19 soldiers were wounded
in fighting that began Friday and continued late yesterday in a remote part of
the municipality of Riosucio, in Choco state.

Carreno did not say how many of the dead were soldiers.

But in a statement read on Radionet radio station, guerrillas from the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said they had killed 53
soldiers, wounded 30 and taken 20 more prisoners.

According to the army, the battle began when about 600 guerrillas attacked
soldiers from three counterinsurgency battalions, the army reported. The
soldiers were patrolling the humid, low-lying jungle region, an area near the
Panama border intersected by rivers. About a month ago, rebels reportedly
began
trying to regain territory there lost last year to landowner-backed
paramilitary groups.

The latest combat occurred less than two weeks after one of the most
devastating offensives ever by rebels who have been fighting the government
since the 1960s, and a week after President Andres Pastrana named a new
military high command.

In three days of nationwide attacks beginning August 4, guerrillas from the
15,000-member ARC and the 5,000-member National Liberation Army destroyed a
major anti-narcotics base, killed as many as 143 soldiers and police, and
captured 129 people

Pastrana, who was inaugurated August 7, has promised to make peace his
government's top priority.

Checked-by: Ghamal de la Guardia