Carnage on the streets as drug barons change tactics

appeared to switch to indiscriminate attacks in their nine-month-old war

against the Government.

Two bombs exploded in busy shopping areas of the capital, Bogota,

yesterday afternoon as thousands of people shopped for today's Mother's

Day holiday.

Police said the bombs killed at least 15 people, including four

children, and wounded 144. Local radio put the death toll at 19.

The more devastating blast killed at least 13 people, wrecked shops

for two blocks and destroyed dozens of cars in the working-class

district of Quirigua.

One woman, hysterical with grief, told how she rushed out to look for

her children. ''My boys were all right but I saw that my daughter had

been blown to pieces,'' she said.

The third car bomb blew up last night in a nightclub area of Cali, 190

miles south-west of Bogota, just as discotheques were filling. It killed

seven people and wounded 30, police said.

Police said the Bogota bombs, which exploded simultaneously a few

miles apart, were the work of the drug barons who have waged war on the

state since the Government cracked down last August on their activities.

''There's no doubt. It's an act of drug-terrorism which continues

making many people innocent victims of its evil instincts,'' Colonel

Jose Camero, operational chief of the Bogota police, told Colombian

television.

A police spokesman in Cali said the bomb there might be linked to a

feud which erupted anew in the past two weeks between the two biggest

cocaine cartels, based in Medellin and Cali. Businesses believed linked

to the Cali cartel had been attacked earlier.

The Bogota bombs seemed designed to inflict maximum casualties. Police

said they contained pieces of metal which became deadly flying shrapnel

when the bombs exploded.

Although scores of bystanders have been killed in previous bomb blasts

in the drug-traffickers' war with the state, most of the attacks were

aimed at specific targets such as businesses, state installations or

police patrols.

The bombings plunged Colombians deeper into a siege mentality two

weeks before elections to pick President Virgilio Barco's successor and

decide whether to continue the Government's tough anti-drugs

policy.

Cesar Gaviria, the ruling Liberal Party's candidate and favourite to

win the May 27 elections, has committed himself to the crackdown but

most opposition candidates have called for a new approach.

The war between the Government and the drug barons resumed in late

March after a two-month truce. Police say drug-traffickers have since

shot dead more than 30 policemen and killed 55 people in bomb blasts.

The immediate aim of the drug barons is to force the Government to

abandon its policy of extraditing drug suspects to the United States to

stand trial.

The Government seized a record 14 tonnes of pure cocaine at a jungle

collection point last week. The army also detained four prominent

Medellin citizens on suspicion of abetting drug-related

terrorism.--Reuter.