100 Oil Workers Possibly Abducted in Colombia

Suspected leftist rebels intercepted buses carrying about 100 oil employees of a U.S.-owned oil company in Colombia and appear to have abducted the workers, officials said Monday.

The workers are Colombian employees of Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, said Jose Munoz, chief of the state security agency in eastern Arauca state.

The rebel National Liberation Army, or ELN, was suspected of stopping the buses carrying workers home from the Cano Limon oil field, Colombia’s second-largest field, Munoz said.

Company officials in Bogota were not available for comment. The ELN had not claimed responsibility.

In a radio interview, the army commander in the region near Colombia’s eastern border with Venezuela, Gen. Carlos Lemos, said the convoy of eight vehicles was intercepted about 10 miles outside the state capital, also called Arauca.

Troops and warplanes were trying to track down the buses, the general said.

The ELN, active in the area, has carried out mass abductions before to raise ransoms and to pressure the government for concessions in peace talks.

Guerrillas frequently bomb pipelines as part of extortion schemes.