Colombia Revolutionary Armed Forces

Investigators struggled Thursday to decipher the newest weapon in violence-plagued Colombia--a necklace bomb--as they tried to determine who was responsible for its debut Monday in a bungled extortion attempt that decapitated a woman.

Investigators struggled Thursday to decipher the newest weapon in violence-plagued Colombia--a necklace bomb--as they tried to determine who was responsible for its debut Monday in a bungled extortion attempt that decapitated a woman.

President Andres Pastrana's tolerance for negotiating with Marxist guerrillas despite their escalating brutality against civilians appeared to be nearing its limits Tuesday as he suspended the next round of peace talks following the savage slaying of an extortion victim. Pastrana angrily announced the suspension after a 53-year-old dairy farmer and mother was decapitated Monday by a bomb that was clamped around her neck in a bungled attempt to wrest $7,500 from her family.

President Andres Pastrana's tolerance for negotiating with Marxist guerrillas despite their escalating brutality against civilians appeared to be nearing its limits Tuesday as he suspended the next round of peace talks following the savage slaying of an extortion victim. Pastrana angrily announced the suspension after a 53-year-old dairy farmer and mother was decapitated Monday by a bomb that was clamped around her neck in a bungled attempt to wrest $7,500 from her family.

Foot soldiers backed by helicopters and warplanes fought leftist rebels for a second day in remote northern Colombia on Friday in the biggest confrontation of a three-week rebel offensive. The military would not confirm a report by RCN radio that 30 guerrillas were killed Thursday night when a column of more than 200 rebels was bombarded in a canyon outside Mutata.

At least 17 people died on a banana plantation Tuesday when suspected leftist rebels opened fire on workers. The gunmen stopped a truck carrying workers to the plantation in the Uraba region, a soldier at the local army brigade said in a telephone interview. "The gunmen ordered the people off the truck and opened fire," the soldier said. The brigade dispatched troops to the site, in an area near the Caribbean about 35 miles from the Panamanian border, to investigate the massacre.

Leftist guerrillas destroyed an aircraft and 24 people died in three massacres Saturday in Colombia's latest wave of violence, police and government officials said. Guerrillas of the Colombia Revolutionary Armed Forces--known as the FARC--took over a small airport at Villa Garzon in southwestern Colombia and forced passengers to get off a 19-seat aircraft of the private airline Aires. The rebels poured gasoline inside the aircraft and set fire to it, an Aires spokesman said.

The Colombian army said Sunday that it has attacked and occupied the headquarters of the country's biggest guerrilla group. Eleven soldiers and air force personnel and as many as 60 guerrillas were reportedly killed. The headquarters of the Marxist Colombia Revolutionary Armed Forces--known as the FARC--in the mountains south of Bogota had not been attacked since it was set up in 1985.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright designated 30 foreign organizations as terrorist groups Wednesday, triggering a law that freezes their financial assets in the United States, denies U.S. visas to their members and subjects Americans who give them money or weapons to 10 years in prison.

The Colombian army is poised for a possible attack on the headquarters of the country's oldest and largest leftist guerrilla group after a week of fighting that killed about 100 people. Colombian troops are digging into a southeastern stretch of jungle after an offensive last week in which 400 soldiers captured a main camp belonging to the Colombia Revolutionary Armed Forces, known by its Spanish acronym FARC.

Every Friday afternoon, caravans of Toyota Land Cruisers and Ford Broncos raise a dust storm along the dirt road that leads to this village in the Colombian mountains. Passengers in blue jeans and boots stop at El Porvenir, the village store, to sip soda and make discreet inquiries before continuing to the guerrilla roadblock that lies somewhere outside of town.

Coca farmer Jose Manoma understands the fury behind the guerrilla offensive that has killed at least 130 Colombians and paralyzed half the country in the last three weeks. His 15-acre field of coca, the leaf that produces cocaine, has been sprayed with defoliant twice this month as part of a U.S.-backed drug eradication program.