Seven people were killed and nearly 50 wounded in a bomb attack on a town plaza in Colombia last night.
Colombian government officials blamed the explosion which happened late last night in Antioquia province on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, rebels who have been weakened by President Alvaro Uribe's US-backed security campaign.
Television showed army helicopters ferrying the most seriously wounded from Ituango town to Medellin. Families were celebrating a local festival and shopping at street stalls when the bomb exploded at around 10 p.m., authorities said.
"I was having a good time with friends. We were standing waiting for others to go to the store when we felt a huge explosion," victim Gilbert Alexis told local radio. "When I got up my legs were hurt. There were wounded people all around."
The attack on Ituango came more than month after the Colombian army tricked rebels into handing over high-profile hostages, Ingrid Betancourt, and three captive US contract workers, in a serious blow to the guerrillas.
Uribe planned to fly to the site of the attack today. Antioquia provincial Gov. Luis Alfredo Ramos said one suspected member of a local Farc group was captured after the bombing.
It was not clear why the Farc would attack a town festival. Ituango, which has had a rebel presence for years, is in the remote northern part of Antioquia, where coca leaf is cultivated to manufacture cocaine for drug traffickers.
Violence from Colombia's conflict has waned as Uribe has sent troops to drive the FARC back into remote mountains and jungles. Rebels suffered a string of setbacks this year but remain a potent force in some rural areas, financed in part by profits from cocaine trafficking.
Three senior Farc commanders have died this year and the guerrillas have been hit by desertions as the government offers rewards for fighters to surrender and the military's improved mobility and intelligence keeps them on the run.
The US government has supplied Colombia with more than $5 billion in mostly military aid since 2000 to battle rebels and drug traffickers. But Colombia remains the world's No. 1 cocaine producer exporting at least 600 tonnes a year.