Bombs hit Medellin

Press, 7 September 1989, Page 8

Bombs hit Medellin

NZPA-Reuter Medellin Two bombs rocked Colombia’s cocaine capital, Medellin, yesterday minutes after the United States President, George Bush, ended a nation-wide United States televised speech unveiling a tough new anti-drugs strategy. A police spokeswoman said the bombs hit two banks in Medellin, 450 km north of Bogota. The explosions came

only hours after gunmen shot dead an army colonel’s wife in Bogota and officials said the country’s drug warlords might be escalating their war by attacking the relatives of security forces engaged in a nation-wide crackdown.

The police spokeswoman said the police suspected the bombs were the work of the “Extraditables,” a shadowy group

identified with drug traffickers and vehemently opposed to extradition to the United States. “These attacks are more of the terrorist escalation that we have been living through,” the spokeswoman said. A radio report said men on foot hurled dynamite at the banks and that one of the explosions apparently injured a girl, who was rushed to a hospital.