Colombia says rebels bombed power pylons for cash

BOGOTA, July 29 (Reuters) - Colombian police arrested seven employees of a maintenance company on Tuesday for paying leftist rebels to blow up 215 electricity pylons near the city of Cali so the company could win contracts to repair them.

Police were hunting for another four employees suspected of being part of the scam with members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office said on television.

"They contracted the FARC to blow up the towers," she said.

The attacks for hire were unusual even by the standards of the FARC, which started out four decades ago as a Marxist peasant army but has since branched out into extortion and cocaine smuggling.

"Left-wing ideology is no longer an issue for the FARC," said Bogota-based defense analyst Pablo Casas. "They are in business to make money illegally and opportunistically."

President Alvaro Uribe has used billions of dollars in U.S. aid to push the FARC onto the defensive. The group has suffered a series of blows this year, including the July 2 rescue of its key hostage, French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by John O'Callaghan)