Hundreds of Rebels Attack Colombia Police Base

Fighting raged all day Sunday in a remote southeastern town after about 800 leftist rebels attacked a police base, killing at least four officers, wounding nine and cutting off communications.

The guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rained homemade missiles on the police garrison in Mitu, capital of Vaupes state, where 120 officers were stationed, Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano told a news conference.

The same type of missiles were used in an Aug. 3 assault that leveled a police anti-narcotics base in the same region.

Serrano said the last radio contact with the garrison was at 2 p.m., eight hours into the attack.

Authorities said warplanes and helicopters were sent to aid the besieged garrison but couldn’t land at the town airport, which had been seized by the rebels. Reinforcements were not expected until dawn today.

Serrano told reporters that he could not confirm rumors of 60 dead police officers.

“Only when the reinforcements arrive can we determine the losses,” he said.

Mitu, a city of 15,000 people near Brazil, can be reached only by air and water. Though no soldiers are based in Mitu, its police post is well fortified and surrounded by barbed wire and trenches, army spokesman Capt. Orlando Castano said.