Colombia says kills 20 FARC rebels in air raid
BOGOTA, July 23 (Reuters) - The Colombian air force bombed a rebel camp, killing at least 20 left-wing guerrillas in the latest blow to the insurgency this year, the government said on Wednesday.
It was the deadliest military strike against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, since the March bombing of a jungle base on Ecuador's side of the border in which key rebel commander Raul Reyes was killed.
The latest raid, on Sunday, allowed the police to collect a large cache of guerrilla arms and explosives in the mountainous southwest province of Cauca, the government said in a statement.
"This was an extremely active guerrilla front involved in blowing up electrical towers and threatening civilian populations in Cauca. The destruction of this camp will hurt them," said Cesar Restrepo, an analyst at Security and Democracy, a Bogota think tank.
On July 2, Colombia rescued French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other high-value captives held for years by the FARC, whose insurgency is funded by cocaine smuggling.
The rescue was the hardest blow to the morale of the outlawed rebel group, which has been put on the defensive by President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-backed military offensive. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Peter Cooney)
