Pablo Escobar Gavira

In their single biggest victory in the drug war, Colombian police Friday shot and killed notorious narcotics trafficker Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, who as a leader of the Medellin cartel waged a campaign of terror to maintain the world's biggest cocaine empire.

Copies of a typewritten warning have been circulating in Medellin for nearly a month. To avoid "being surprised by killer bullets," the anonymous message says, people should not gather at night in bars, cafes, streets or parks. "Any group found in these kinds of establishments and places after the designated hour, 9 p.m., will be wiped out no matter who they may be," the message says. It is not an idle warning.

President Virgilio Barco Vargas promised that if the head of the Medellin drug cartel surrenders, he will not be extradited to the United States and will receive a fair trial in Colombia. Hours later, the cartel threatened to kill a senator and explode a bomb in the capital if three men arrested last week are not freed. The three are believed to be cartel security men.

Government officials are wondering how to feed and dispose of hundreds of exotic animals--among them giraffes, zebras and elephants--found on a sprawling estate belonging to accused Medellin drug chieftain Pablo Escobar. It is costing thousands of dollars to feed them, and the government has been in contact with Colombian and foreign zoos to be ready offer the animals if no funds can be found to care for them properly, a senior government official said Thursday.

Colombian drug traffickers have received expert training from British and Israeli mercenaries in how to murder and kidnap their opponents, including the manufacture of sophisticated remote-controlled car bombs, Senate investigators have found. In a report to be released today, the staff of a Senate subcommittee says that the problem of international narcoterrorism has been complicated by the indifference of Colombian authorities and inadequate law enforcement by Britain and Israel.

The Colombian government has ordered a security crackdown at the facility holding Pablo Escobar amid continuing reports that the imprisoned boss of the Medellin cocaine cartel is running his criminal business through visits from subordinates, including wanted terrorists. "The idea is to convert this facility into a true high-security prison," Justice Minister Fernando Carrillo said in an interview last week, hours before announcing new security measures at the hillside jail near Medellin.

Fugitive Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar on Friday denied the government's contention that he was behind the assassination of leftist presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo. The president of the Patriotic Union, Diego Montana Cuellar, meanwhile, said in a televised interview Friday on the news program Cinevision that his party is withdrawing from the May 27 general elections.

High on a cool hilltop, welders are installing the last iron grates on a new prison built specially for one of the world's most wanted criminals, Pablo Escobar. The bars are painted light green to blend with the lush, piney surroundings and the prison's country-estate look. To anyone inside, they distract little from the breathtaking view of the Medellin Valley that became known, thanks to Escobar, as the cocaine capital of the world.

The State Department posted a $2-million reward Friday for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Pablo Escobar, the fugitive Colombian drug lord wanted in the United States to face trial for drug trafficking and terrorism. The reward, announced under a 1985 federal law authorizing rewards in drug and terrorism cases, came a day after a U.S.

A paramilitary group dedicated to exterminating cocaine king Pablo Escobar has set fire to his collection of costly limousines and motorcycles, apparently to avenge terrorist attacks against civilians, police said Wednesday. Police said 10 armed men broke into a warehouse late Tuesday night in the south of Medellin, Escobar's hometown, poured gasoline over six Rolls-Royces, one Mercedes, one Porsche and 20 motorcycles and set them afire. The vehicles were destroyed.