http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/world/97/09/13/colombia.20.html

Colombia launches major sweep against rebels

Reuters News Service

BOGOTA, Colombia The army has launched a major counterinsurgency
drive in southeast Colombia that military chief Gen. Manuel Jose Bonett
described Friday as the biggest offensive of its kind since 1990.

Bonett said the sweep against Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
rebels was focused on a junglecovered area known as Yari, about 185
miles southeast of Bogota.

Bonett said he had no immediate information on casualties in the area.
But a government human rights official said at least nine members of a
nearly extinct indigenous tribe were killed in the general area of the
combat zone Wednesday, the same day the offensive got under way.

"It's an extensive area where there's a lot of drug trafficking," Bonett
told reporters, saying it was checkered with large plantations of coca,
the raw material for cocaine, and clandestine drug laboratories and
airstrips.

"We're moving in carefully," Bonett added, saying rebel landmines had
been detected in the area.

Senior army officials said 1,000 troops from three separate brigades and
two counterinsurgency battalions were involved in the lastest offensive,
targeting a force of about 300 rebels.