Colombia

Police at a Mexican seaport said they had found a pickup truck with body panels and a rear bumper made from pressed cocaine coated in fiberglass. The attorney general's office said a trained dog picked up the scent of drugs during an inspection of a shipping container sent from Colombia. Officials in the port of Manzanillo dismantled parts of a 1990 pickup truck inside the container and found the coated drugs.

An attack by leftist rebels on an elite counterinsurgency unit killed four soldiers and left six missing in the country's southeastern plains, the defense minister said. A platoon with the 62nd Counter-Guerrilla Battalion was retrieving the bodies of two rebels killed in a bombardment when the soldiers came under mortar attack, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters. He said one soldier was wounded in Monday's attack by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in an area of Guaviare state known as Cano Flauta.

An hourlong video that police found on a computer of an alleged rebel appears to confirm that Colombia's largest rebel army gave money to the 2006 election campaign of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa. The video shows the second-ranking commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia reading the deathbed manifesto of founding leader Pedro Antonio Marin, also known as Manuel Marulanda and "Sureshot." The manifesto states that the FARC made contributions to Correa's campaign, though it does not make clear whether Correa was aware of them.

The military said at least 16 suspected guerrillas and one soldier were killed in clashes. Defense Minister Gen. Freddy Padilla said troops faced off with rebels belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in the southern department of Meta. Padilla said that soldiers seized camping equipment, munitions and other items after the clashes, which began Friday. The suspected rebels answered to No. 2 FARC commander Jorge Briceno, known as Mono Jojoy, Padilla said.

A dozen members of a Colombian group called the 57th Front have been charged with conspiring to aid a foreign terrorist group and taking a U.S. citizen hostage last year in Panama, authorities announced. Prosecutors said only two of the defendants are in custody. The rest are fugitives. An indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan accused six defendants of aiding Colombia's rebel army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist group.

Venezuela said at least 10 members of a Colombian amateur soccer team had been found dead after being kidnapped there. Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez told reporters the bullet-riddled bodies were found in various parts of the western state of Tachira, on the border with Colombia. One man survived, while another was still missing, Venezuelan authorities said. The players, said to be tradesmen, were in Venezuela for a game and were kidnapped Oct. 11. Abductions are rife on both sides of the frontier, where Colombian guerrilla groups, paramilitaries and criminal gangs all operate.

Whether it's called an "arms race" or a "coincidental modernization of existing stocks," a wave of weapons purchases by Latin American nations is causing neighbors to watch one another with growing mistrust and fear. Brazil says it must protect its newfound oil and gas riches. Venezuela says the U.S. military might attack it. Colombia is worried about Venezuela, Ecuador is watching Colombia, and Paraguay is keeping an eye on Bolivia. There's no question that weapons sales around the region are soaring.

In a bizarre turn in a case that has kept this nation in thrall, preliminary blood tests indicate that a child who has been a government ward for more than two years is the son of Clara Rojas, a presidential campaign manager held by leftist rebels who kidnapped her nearly six years ago.

Two women held hostage for more than five years by leftist rebels were released deep in Colombia's eastern jungle Thursday and handed over to Red Cross officials in helicopters provided by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Seven years and $4.35 billion since the advent of a massive U.S. aid program, the Colombian military has been transformed from an outmatched "garrison force" that had yielded huge swaths of terrain to leftist guerrillas, to an aggressive force that has won back territory. The transformation, however, has had a dark side. Soldiers and police officers have committed rising numbers of human rights abuses, even as U.S. training intensifies, rights groups charge.