U.S. FORCES IN COLOMBIA MIGHT TAKE PART IN BID TO RESCUE 3 AMERICANS

Search For Contractors Continues; Official Says Stepped-Up Role Possible

BOGOTA, Colombia - As thousands of Colombian troops search for three
Americans held captive by rebels, officials are leaving open the
possibility that U.S. forces could be involved in any rescue mission, a
senior American envoy said yesterday.

"I don't think anyone on the Colombian side or the American side has ruled
anything in or out," U.S. Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman said at the
presidential palace in Bogota, where he met with President Alvaro Uribe.

However, any rescue operation likely would be conducted by the Colombian
army, he said.

Participation in a rescue by American ground forces would mark a new level
of U.S. involvement in Colombia's 38-year civil war. Washington so far has
restricted its military assistance to the training of Colombian troops by
U.S. special forces.

The United States also sent dozens of combat helicopters and assorted other
hardware to the Colombian military.

Three American military contractors based in Maryland were captured by the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) after their plane crashed
Feb. 13 on a southern hilltop. A fourth American and a Colombian soldier
aboard the plane were shot dead by rebels.

Almost 5,000 Colombian military personnel are searching for the trio - the
first Americans captured by the FARC while on official U.S. government
business. Colombian authorities said the men were on an intelligence mission.

American military personnel are helping to plan the search-and-rescue
operation in the

mountains and humid lowlands of southern Colombia and are providing
intelligence, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. No American
combat troops were participating in the operation yet, he said.

This large deployment of Colombian troops, who are using U.S.-donated Black
Hawk helicopters, has diverted resources from other missions, particularly
the aerial fumigation of drug crops, the U.S. official said.

The participants include U.S.-trained Colombian counter-narcotics troops,
who normally protect the crop dusters from gunfire. The coca crops are
protected by rebels and right-wing paramilitaries, who control cocaine
production in Colombia and use the profits to fuel the war.

"It does, in fact, begin to detract from other areas," the U.S. official
said. "It detracts in areas from the spraying operations to other combat
operations."

However, the search operation is expected to continue "as long as we have
hope of finding the hostages," the official said.

Grossman, meanwhile, rejected FARC attempts to negotiate the release of the
Americans as part of a large-scale prisoner exchange between the Colombian
government and the rebels.

Colombia's war pits the FARC and a smaller rebel group against government
forces and the outlawed paramilitary groups. About 3,500 people, mostly
civilians, died in the fighting last year.