The Colombian Army on Monday evacuated people from the communities surrounding an area where guerrilla rebels from the National Liberation Army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia group have been fighting over the past week. (AP video shot by Fernando Vergara / Jan. 20, 2025)
By Manuel Rueda And Astrid Suárez The Associated Press
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian president Gustavo Petro warned on Monday that his nation’s military will take offensive actions against the National Liberation Army after the rebels, known as the ELN, unleashed a wave of attacks in the country’s northeast that left dozens of people killed and forced thousands to flee their homes.
“The ELN has chosen the path of war, and that’s what they will get,” Petro wrote in a message on X, in which he accused the rebels of turning into a drug trafficking group and compared their methods to those of …