CALI (AFP) — Colombia was rocked by a string of 24 coordinated bomb and gun attacks that killed at least seven people across the country’s southwest Tuesday, deepening a security crisis roiling the Andean nation.
Attackers struck targets in Cali — the country’s third-largest city — and several nearby towns, hitting police posts, municipal buildings and civilian targets.
National Police chief Carlos Fernando Triana said assailants — suspected to be a local guerrilla group — had attacked using car bombs, motorcycle bombs, rifle fire and a suspected drone.
“There are two police officers dead, and a number of members of the public are also dead,” he said. Police later put the toll at seven dead and 28 more injured.
In Cali and the towns of Villa Rica, Guachinte and Corinto, Agence France-Presse journalists witnessed the tangled wreckage of vehicle bombs surrounded by scorched debris and damaged buildings.
The attacks came days after a brazen attempted assassination of a presidential candidate in Bogota that has put the country on edge.
Many Colombians are now fearful of a return to the violence of the 1980s and 1990s, when cartel attacks, guerrilla violence and political assassinations were commonplace.