COLOMBIAN PARAMILITARIES TRAINED THE IRA AND ETA

We Taught IRA How To Ambush

THE IRA's connection with Colombian terrorists dates back to the 1980s when
they were trained by paramilitary fighters linked to the late drug baron
Pablo Escobar, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

Three Irishmen accused of training Colombian Marxist guerrillas in the use
of explosives are currently awaiting trial in Bogota after they were
arrested in the Colombian jungle last year.

Recent IRA involvement in the South American state, which has been rocked
by a spate of car bombs and mortar attacks since February, has been with
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) which shares similar
political ideals.

However, Scotland on Sunday has discovered that the IRA's first contacts in
Colombia were paramilitaries involved in crime and drugs, who murdered
hundreds of civilians.

According to a former militia man, the IRA first visited Colombia in the
1980s to learn about urban warfare. In return they offered to teach the
drug gangs about explosives.

Former militia fighter 'Jairo', who insists on keeping his identity secret,
said he first worked with Irish terrorists in the 1980s as they sought to
learn techniques in urban warfare.

In the 1980s, as today, Medellin was divided into different sectors,
controlled by various factions - left-wing militias, right-wing
paramilitary gangs, drugs traffickers and common criminals.

Jairo said: "Our leader was commandante Pablo Garcia, one of the most
powerful militia leaders, with 150 gunmen under his command."

Remembering the violent days of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when
Medellin was dominated by the drug lord Pablo Escobar, Jairo added: "You
have to remember that in this period Medellin was experiencing an urban
conflict like no other, with ambushes and street operations commonplace.
"That is what brought the foreigners. They wanted to learn from our
techniques of urban patrolling and ambushing. In turn they taught
explosives." Among those foreigners were members of the Basque separatist
group ETA and Irishmen from the IRA.

According to Jairo these men patrolled with members of the urban militias,
learning about ambushes, anti-ambush drills and house clearing. The payoff
was that the Spanish and Irish offered their more advanced experience of
explosives.

These skills were then put at the disposal of Escobar, who set off car
bombs across Medellin and Bogota forcing the Colombian government to
suspend his extradition to the United States in return for peace.

Escobar was finally killed in a shoot-out with government forces, but the
IRA training of Colombian fighters has continued, with FARC becoming the
benefactors.

The head of the Colombian armed forces, General Fernando Tapias, said the
latest wave of bombings launched by FARC revealed a new level of explosives
sophistication, imported from other "terrorist" organisations.

General Gary Speer of the US Southern Command was more explicit when he
answered questions posed by a Congressional Committee in Washington earlier
this month.

"The evidence suggests that the techniques used in the terrorist campaign
[of the FARC] were instructed by members of the IRA." Gerry Adams, the
leader of Sinn Fein, has been invited to answer the committee's questions
but has not given them a firm answer.

The connection between the IRA and FARC became clear when three IRA men
were arrested in Colombia last year, but they represent only the latest of
dozens of IRA visitors to the South American country.

Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley have been awaiting trial
in Modelo prison in Bogota on charges of instructing the Marxist rebels in
explosives.

The three were travelling on false passports, but with the discovery of
their true identities British intelligence was able to provide the
Colombian authorities with the men's colourful histories.

Both Monaghan and McCauley have served time in British prisons for IRA
attacks, and are known as explosives experts. Connolly is Sinn Fein's
representative to Cuba, and the only one who speaks Spanish. He acted as
the translator during the training.

In February, as the elite troops of the Rapid Deployment Force were
pressing an offensive against the FARC, they received an intelligence
tip-off that there was a guerrilla safe house in the town of El Dorado in
the southern province of Meta. An entire platoon of soldiers broke in
through the front door. It was boobytrapped, triggering an explosion that
killed 29.

After the disaster, one of the guerrillas responsible was captured. He said
that the man who had planted the bomb had been trained by foreigners,
adding a description matching the three Irishmen.

The second incident was last month in the city of Villavicencio, 45 miles
south-east of the capital, Bogota. On a Saturday night two explosions
killed 12 and injured 67.

"The use of a bomb as bait has been done in Northern Ireland," said a
military source, "but this was something new to Colombia." The new
techniques have also been seen in mortar attacks.

The firing devices and explosive charges have been improved and accuracy is
now significantly better. Intelligence sources see the handiwork of the IRA
behind the incidents.

While the FARC has been given state-of-the-art explosives training, the
Irishmen have been given money in return. 'Alexander', a FARC witness, said
he saw a contract signed between the guerrillas and the Irishmen and that
it was for money, although he did not see the amount.

The indications are that the deal was not between the IRA and the FARC, but
rather a private venture with individuals from the organisation acting
purely as mercenaries for money - an arrangement that had happened before.

"It is not a continuing relationship, but it's not a one-off deal either,"
one senior US official said. "Don't think of it as an
organisation-to-organisation relationship but an individual-to-individual
relationship that was forged a while back."

The mercenary nature of the agreement was confirmed by an unlikely source,
the head of the right-wing paramilitaries, Carlos Castano, warlord of the
United Self Defence Forces of Colombia and right-wing alliance of death
squads, sworn to eliminate the Marxist guerrillas.

He insisted the men had offered him their services but he turned them down.
He may have been simply fuelling the fires of controversy, or maybe not.

According to intelligence sources, the IRA men were not alone in Colombia.
At the time of their arrest, another two managed to escape across the
Venezuelan border. Colombian military intelligence believe at least 25 IRA
members have been through Colombia.