Colombian Violence Claims 24, Both On the Battlefield and Off

Scattered clashes over the past two days have killed 20 combatants in Colombia, where leftist rebels, government troops and rightist paramilitaries have been fighting for more than three decades, the army said Saturday.

In addition, at least four villagers were killed Saturday by suspected paramilitary gunmen in northern Colombia in the latest in a rash of attacks blamed on an outlaw group.

The army said three fighters from the leftist National Liberation Army, or ELN, were killed during early morning skirmishes Saturday outside the township of Anori in Antioquia province, 185 miles north of Colombia’s capital, Bogota.

Government troops also killed a fighter from the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in the southern province of Narino, and two right-wing paramilitary fighters in Tolima province, army spokesman Capt. Jorge Florez said.

Authorities accuse the paramilitary fighters--known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC--of slaying 57 people in the past week, including 24 unarmed peasants in the village of Buga and a congressman.

In the latest incursion, suspected paramilitary fighters shot four people in San Onofre to death early Saturday after accusing them of collaborating with leftist guerrillas, said Sucre provincial police spokesman Johny Florez. The village is 340 miles northwest of Bogota.

On Friday, government troops in the provinces of Norte de Santander and Cundinamarca killed nine fighters from the ELN and the FARC, the nation’s largest rebel army.

Five soldiers were killed during the battle in Cundinamarca when they walked into a FARC camp strewn with land mines, the army said.

The fighting comes a week after concessions toward peace by the 16,000-strong FARC raised hopes for a negotiated solution to Colombia’s 37-year civil war.

The war, pitting the two rebel armies against the government and a right-wing paramilitary army, claims about 3,500 lives every year.