Apparent Rebel Blast Kills 2 in Colombia

At least two civilians died and 14 others were badly injured Tuesday when Marxist rebels tried to fire three homemade missiles from a truck into an army barracks here, authorities said.

The devices, made of propane gas cylinders packed with explosives and shrapnel, appeared to have exploded before they could be launched at the army’s 4th Brigade about 100 yards away in the middle of a residential district, an army spokesman said.

Television images showed at least three civilians lying on the street covered in blood. They also showed extensive damage to houses within a two-block radius of the blast site. The pickup truck that was intended as the launch pad was destroyed.

“We have a partial casualty figure of two dead and approximately 14 injured. These are irrational acts against the civilian population,” 4th Brigade commander Gen. Eduardo Herrera told reporters.

Another army spokesman said the attack was most likely carried out by urban guerrilla fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Latin America’s largest surviving 1960s rebel army. FARC rebels have regularly tried to attack the 4th Brigade headquarters. In July, a rebel car bomb wrecked part of the barracks, killing 10 people and maiming 38 others.

The FARC, which has an estimated 17,000 fighters nationwide, is engaged in year-old peace talks with the government in a Switzerland-sized area in the south that has been cleared of security forces as a forum for negotiations.

But talks are going ahead with no prior deal to call a cease-fire in the 3-decade-old war that has claimed more than 35,000 lives in the last 10 years.