Colombian police kill rebel behind club attack

BOGOTA, Oct 25 (Reuters) - A Colombian guerrilla accused of planning an attack on a country club that killed 39 people in 2003 was shot dead on Sunday while trying to evade capture, police said.

Herman Triana was killed in a gunfight with police as they tried to arrest him in the southern jungle province of Caqueta.

Triana, known as "James Patamala", was wanted for planning and financing the bombing of "Club Nogal" in Bogota, the only attack of its kind directed straight at the capital city's business elite.

The bombing, which shocked Colombians for its audacity, occurred just as President Alvaro Uribe was starting a U.S.-backed crackdown on Marxist FARC guerrillas, who have been fighting the state since the 1960s.

Uribe was re-elected in 2006 and remains popular among voters and investors for pushing the FARC onto the defensive. He may run for a third term next year if his supports succeed in changing the law to allow him stand in the May election.

Also on Sunday, the guerrillas killed five soldiers with home-made rockets made of cooking gas cylinders in Guaviare province. The army patrol was targeted as it tried to secure an area where workers were pulling up coca plants used by the FARC to make the cocaine that funds its insurgency. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein, editing by Chris Wilson)