Gunmen in Colombia Kill 11 at Town Hall

Suspected leftist guerrillas carrying assault rifles swept into a town in southern Colombia on Tuesday and attacked government offices, killing six City Council members and five other people, authorities said.

The guerrillas, believed to be members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, opened fire at a local council meeting in the town of Puerto Rico, 200 miles south of Bogota, said Oscar Galvis, an official with Colombia’s intelligence police.

Oscar Andres Nunez, director of the National Federation of Town Councils, said several trucks full of FARC guerrillas had arrived at the main square, site of the town hall, and begun shooting.

He said the guerrillas also fired on and threw grenades at a nearby police station.

Police identified the victims as six council members, four police officers and another town official.

Puerto Rico Councilman Julio Casas said he saw a pickup truck zoom into the plaza, then bullets started flying.

“So I then escaped through a window, climbed a wall and jumped onto a patio,” Casas said by telephone. “I heard the shots and the screams of my colleagues.”

Puerto Rico, a town of 25,000, is in Caqueta state in a region that has been a FARC stronghold for many years. The town’s mayor was killed by FARC rebels in 2001, and the mayor who replaced him was also killed by rebels. A third mayor was chosen, and he barely escaped a FARC assassination attempt that killed his two bodyguards.

The jungle area is key to the FARC’s drug-smuggling operations. The guerrillas have been hit hard over the last two years by U.S.-backed army initiatives.

The attack on Puerto Rico occurred three days after the U.S. ambassador to Colombia visited the region to inaugurate a library and school that the United States helped fund.