U.S. jets will help drug war

Press, 6 September 1989, Page 10

U.S. jets will help drug war

NZPA-Reuter Medellin Two people were killed and 12 injured in a shootout, and a bomb damaged a police outpost in new violence in Colombia as eight United States jet fighters arrived to help fight the war against powerful cocaine cartels.

In Medellin, Colombia’s drug capital, a bomb thrown by assailants on a motor-cycle yesterday damaged a one-room police outpost, an officer at Medellin police headquarters said. No-one was hurt.

He also reported dynamite explosions in two working-class neighbourhoods. Two people were slightly hurt in one blast, said the officer, who declined to be identified.

Earlier a gunman clad in Army combat fatigues opened fire with an automatic assault rifle on two waiting rooms at Medellin’s international airport

which were packed with businessmen and industrialists.

Onlookers said the police and troops returned fire, hitting the man eight times and killing him. A judicial official said the assailant carried no identity papers.

The other man killed was identified as Rafael Arango Cuartas, aged 27, an executive at a Medellin paint factory badly damaged in a dynamite attack last week.

The 12 people injured included three police officers.

A police’ spokeswoman said the gunman was a “sicario,” a term commonly used to refer to dreaded hit men employed by drug lords to kill Government officials and anyone else who stands in the way of their multi-billion dollar business.