Drug Cartel Fires Rocket Into Factory as ‘Total War’ Escalates in Colombia

A rocket slammed into a paint factory today in the drug cartel stronghold of Medellin, wounding eight people and destroying 50 cars in a further escalation of violence by cocaine traffickers waging “total war” against the government.

Drug-financed hit squads also were blamed for a pair of overnight bombings in Medellin, where police were enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew after a rash of attacks on government-owned businesses and political offices.

Police and news reports said a ground-to-ground rocket fired from a nearby hill struck Medellin’s Pintuco paint factory at 10:15 a.m., wounding at least eight people, destroying 50 cars and damaging 11 other businesses.

The attack was believed to be the first involving such sophisticated weaponry since Colombian drug kingpins issued a statement last week declaring “total war” in retaliation for government efforts to clamp down on cocaine trafficking and extradite drug cartel members to the United States for trial.

President Virgilio Barco Vargas launched the crackdown after cocaine gangs assassinated a leading presidential candidate, Sen. Luis Carlos Galan, during an Aug. 18 political rally.

In Bogota, authorities announced the arrest of a man believed to be Galan’s assassin. Police said the suspect, identified as Alvaro Delgado Posso, was apprehended Tuesday near the airport at Cartagena, a Caribbean coast city.

Delgado Posso, who was carrying a large amount of cash at the time of his arrest, matched witnesses’ descriptions of the gunman who fired the fatal shots, authorities said.

In Medellin, a provincial capital 150 miles northwest of Bogota, suspected cocaine gangs bombed the office of Petrolera Terpel Co., a state-owned gasoline firm, and exploded a grenade at a country club, police said. Both attacks caused damage but no casualties, authorities said.

About 4,000 police and soldiers patrolled residential neighborhoods of the city of 2 million and tanks cruised the industrial district on the first night of a dusk-to-dawn curfew, witnesses said. A spokesman for the mayor’s office said 200 people were arrested for curfew violations overnight.

Meanwhile, a paramilitary band believed affiliated with drug traffickers clashed with an army patrol in a remote area of the northern state of Cesar, the Colombian radio chain RCN quoted military sources as saying. Five of the attackers were killed, RCN quoted the army sources as saying.

In Bogota, an army spokesman said the military had discovered a major financial operations center of accused Medellin Cartel chieftain Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, one of 12 drug barons whose extradition is sought by the United States.