U.S. citizens called target of attacks in Colombia

By Vanessa Arrington
The Associated Press

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Distributed to U.S. citizens in the Colombian capital, the embassy statement said the grenade attack Saturday night "was apparently intended to kill or injure American citizens" and warned them to avoid popular nightlife and commercial centers.

The attack killed one person and injured 72, including at least one American. It was the first time rebels had tried to target U.S. citizens in a terrorist-style attack in Bogotá.

Three U.S. government contractors are being held as prisoners of war by Colombia's largest rebel group after their plane crashed in rebel territory last February. A fourth American and a Colombian soldier who were aboard the plane were executed by members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC.

The rebels have been angry at the United States because over the past three years, it has provided $2.5 billion to Colombia to help the government battle rebels and drug traffickers.

A man, identified by police as a member of a commando unit of the FARC, threw hand grenades into two bars Saturday night. Both bars — the Bogotá Beer Company and Palos de Moguer — were popular with U.S. soldiers, contractors, journalists and other expatriates.

American Airlines pilot Vance Vogeli was drinking beer on the patio of Palos de Moguer when one of the grenades exploded, showering the patrons with shrapnel.

"I looked down and there was blood," Vogeli, from Sarasota, Fla., told The Associated Press from his hospital bed Monday night. "My leg was contorted, going off to the side."

His Colombian girlfriend ran to get help and came back with half a dozen people who hoisted the 6-foot-4-inch, 230-pound American onto a door, carried him to an old truck and drove him to the hospital.

A security guard, meanwhile, grabbed the assailant and turned him over to police.

The FARC increasingly has brought the civil war from the countryside to the nation's cities since hard-line President Álvaro Uribe took office in August 2002 and began a crackdown. Saturday night's attack was the sixth this year in the capital.

In its statement, the U.S. Embassy said it believed the threat against U.S. citizens continues.

The civil war kills about 3,500 people, mostly civilians, each year.

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