Berliner Tageblatt - Bomb attacks in Colombia injure six

The police and military blamed the ELN group, with which the government called off peace talks last month, for the attacks in a restive region near Colombia's border with Venezuela.

A car bomb all but destroyed a toll booth outside the city of Villa del Rosario, while explosives also detonated at police stations in the same city and in neighboring Cucuta, police commander General William Quintero told W Radio.

A source in the Norte de Santander departmental government, of which Cucuta is the capital, told AFP six people were injured.

Analysts say the security situation in Colombia has deteriorated under President Gustavo Petro's peace drive, which has seen an easing of the state's military offensive against armed groups.

Petro was elected in 2022 on promises of bringing "total peace" to a country battling to extricate itself from six decades of armed conflict between leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug cartels and the government.

Peace talks with remaining armed groups have broken down several times since a deal inked in 2016 led to the disarmament of the FARC leftist rebels, the biggest among the those groups.

The Norte de Santander department is a stronghold of the 5,800-strong National Liberation Army (ELN), which last month launched an offensive targeting rival groups and civilians it alleged to be sympathizers in the Catatumbo region.

More than 50 people have been killed and some 50,000 driven from their homes, prompting Petro's government to suspend talks with the ELN.

The ELN has taken part in failed negotiations with Colombia's last five governments.

The country also faces a political crisis, with deeply unpopular Petro this month asking his entire cabinet to resign on the grounds they were ineffective.

One of those to quit was Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez, whom Petro replaced with Air Force General Pedro Sanchez.

On Monday, the president claimed to have been the target of a plot to down his plane with missiles by "big mafias," among which he listed the ELN.

O.Lorenz--BTB