AIR ASSAULT TARGETS DRUG CROPS

Colombia's Air Force Has Begun Strafing And Bombing A National Park
Where FARC Rebels Are Growing Coca And Destroying Rain Forest

BOGOTA - Colombia's air force said Friday it has begun strafing and
bombing a national park where rebels have killed a dozen police who
were working to clear the mountainous jungle reserve of plants used to
make cocaine.

Air Force Gen. Flavio Ulloa told The Associated Press that the bombing
campaign was aimed at camps where rebels with the leftist
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, are known to be
hiding out. He said the results of late Thursday's first attacks
involving planes and helicopters were still not known.

''We're only hitting specific targets where we know the rebels are,
but we're hitting them hard,'' said Ulloa.

Environmentalists say the bombing is destroying decades of
conservation work. But Ulloa said the air force is well aware of the
fragility of the nature reserve, but said coca-growing in the park is
doing far more damage. Rebels and others in the drug trade have burned
acre upon acre of virgin rain forest and poisoned the rivers with
drug-making chemical waste.

President Alvaro Uribe ordered the air assault after rebels Wednesday
killed six police guards protecting workers hired to destroy thousands
of acres of coca plants from the Sierra Macarena National Park, 105
miles south of Bogota. Six other police were killed in the park on
Feb. 6.

To limit environmental damage, the Colombian government in January
began the risky operation of removing the coca by hand. Officials
hired 1,000 rural workers protected by 3,000 police and army troops,
and Uribe said the operation would continue till ''every last coca
plant'' was ripped from the park.

But the rebels are resisting such efforts with mortar attacks and
snipers.

The six police killed Wednesday were all shot in the head from long
range.