At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.
Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.
Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.
Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.
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Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the largest of the country’s rebel groups, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.
It was formed in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, carrying out a series of attacks against political and economic targets.
It officially ceased to be an armed group the following year – but some small dissident groups rejected the agreement and refused to disarm.
According to a report by Colombia’s Truth Commission in 2022, fighting between government forces, FARC, and the militant group National Liberation Army had killed around 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.
Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.
It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.
The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.
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