What is known about the attack against a military base and the demolition of a police helicopter that leave at least 18 dead in Colombia

Several dissidents of the FARC emerged after the peace process signed in 2016 with the government.

“After the defeat produced to the Carlos Patiño column with the loss of a good part of the Micay Canyon, we have a terrorist reaction in Cali,” Petro wrote in X.

The president referred to the seizure, on Tuesday, August 19, of hundreds of thousands of ammunition and explosives in the Micay Canyon, an area in the department of Cauca.

No armed group attributed the incident so far.

Earlier this month, Colombia buried the conservative presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, 39, who was shot during a campaign act in Bogotá, the capital.

The last attacks increase the pressure on the Petro government.

Its opponents indicate that the conciliatory position of the first executive towards the armed groups is related to this rebound in violence that, although it does not reach the levels of past decades, generates a growing concern in the country.

In this note we explain what happened on Thursday.

According to the Police, the explosive attack in Cali, a city of 2.2 million inhabitants, was made with bomb cylinders loaded in a truck.

The authorities indicate that the objective of the Marco Fidel Suárez air base, in the north of the city.

Witnesses on the field told the AFP news agency that they heard explosions near the base, that there were many people injured and that several homes were damaged.

The explosion, which claimed the life of six civilians, took place around 15 local time.

Several buildings were evacuated and the Mayor's Office reported street closures and circulation restrictions.

In the same area, the presence of a van with pump cylinders inside was detected inside, although it was then ruled out that they were loaded.

The mayor of Cali, Alejandro Eder, ordered an emergency state in the city.

He also announced a temporary prohibition of the entry of large trucks and offered a reward of US $ 10,000 for those who collaborate with the authorities.

Valle del Cauca, department that has as capital Cali, has been frequent target of attacks in recent months.

On June 10, the responsibility of a wave of explosions and armed attacks that left seven dead was also attributed to EMC.

Another 12 attacks occurred in the neighboring department of Cauca, in which eight people died.

In this region of the country several dissidents of the FARC, features heirs of paramilitarism and the ELN (National Liberation Army) converge.

All groups that dispute territorial control and maintain an armed struggle between them and against the Colombian State.

Hours before the explosions in Cali, the police general, Carlos Fernando Triana, described as “terrorist action” the demolition of a police helicopter with a drone in Amalfi, Antioquia, in which 12 agents died.

According to Triana, these actions were “against a personnel component that fulfilled land sprinkler work of illicit crops and against an aircraft of the institution.”

The radius W station reported that the drone attack occurred while the aircraft “was aimed at supporting a group of police officers who advanced manual eradication of illicit crops.”

The Minister of Defense, Pedro Sánchez, initially attributed the attack on the Gulf clan, the largest drug cartel in Colombia.

But later he said that it was the work of an EMC's split faction, led by Commander Alexander Díaz Mendoza, aka de Calarcá.

According to local press reports, Citizens arrested an unarmed man who tried to flee the explosions scene in Cali.

Later, President Petro shared in his X account that it is an individual identified as Alias ​​Sebastián, who allegedly belongs to one of the EMC structures, directed by Iván Jacob Idrobo, aka Marlon.

The president, at a press conference, said that the attack was executed by “two people, without weapons, but loaded with explosives, who ran just one of the trucks was activated, and that the population helped capture in the next neighborhood.”

The Colombian Prosecutor's Office speaks of “two men who would have participated in the activation of explosive artifacts” in Cali and who were made available to this entity.

“The preliminary information accounts for a possible authorship of the Jaime Martínez structure of the FARC dissidents,” said the Prosecutor's Office in X.

This institution also verifies and analyzes the criminal structures that operate in the area where the helicopter was demolished.

“From the first proceedings, there are evidentiary material elements that involve the 36th front of the self -denominated central general of the FARC dissidents,” added the Prosecutor's Office in X.

From the extinct Farc are multiple fragmented dissidents, arising after rejecting the peace agreement signed in 2016 with most of the FARC after six decades of insurgency.

Left guerrillas, right -wing paramilitaries and cartels still control areas of Colombia, but the country has enjoyed years of relative calm.

However, there has been a recent increase in violence that, according to experts, demonstrates that armed groups are recovering strength and ability to carry out coordinated and complex attacks.

Colombians fear a return to violence of the 1980s and 1990s, when the attacks of cartels, guerrilla violence and political murders were common.

However, analysts consulted by BBC Mundo insist that, although the trend is worrying, violence is far from then on.

After what happened, President Petro traveled to Cali, where he had a meeting with senior military positions and officials from various ministries of his government.

Although at first, Interior Minister Armando Benedetti spoke about the possibility of establishing a “internal shock”, this idea was discarded by the president on Thursday.

However, the creation of a unified command post (PMU) was ordered to address the sequelae of the emergency.

According to the newspaper El Tiempo, the military presence in the area will be increased.

Eder, mayor of Cali, explained that the objective of the PMU will be to recover sectors of the South of the Valle del Cauca.

In response to the attacks on Thursday, Petro announced that the dissident guerrillas of the FARC loyal to the leader Néstor Gregorio Vera, another group known as the “Second Marquetalia” and the largest poster in the country, the Gulf clan, would be declared as “terrorist organizations.”

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