A US governmentplane with three Americans aboard is reported to have crashed in Colombia during a search and rescue operation for US DefenceDepartment contractors taken hostage by left-wing rebels lastmonth.
Details are scarce, with a US official saying only thatColombian forces had reached the site of the wrecked Cessnaaircraft in the southern, war-torn province of Caqueta.
He declined comment on the possible fate of the threeAmericans and refused to reveal their identities, saying theirfamilies would first be notified. When asked whether theAmericans were found at the crash site, or were stillunaccounted for, he responded: "We're getting some confusedinformation on that. ...
"We should have more (details) for you in the morning."
The episode echoed the Feb 13th crash of a US-operatedCessna, also in Caqueta. Marxist rebels with the RevolutionaryArmed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials FARC,seized three Americans from the crash site and declared themprisoners of war.
Locals also saw them kill a US man and a Colombian armysergeant who resisted.The US government says the contractors had been on amission searching for illegal coca leaf, the raw ingredient incocaine and the main target of Colombia's US-backed war ondrugs. Colombia is the world's top cocaine producer.
Those kidnappings and killings, although dwarfed by thecurrent US war in Iraq, have been a high priority on the USagenda in Latin America. The United States has dispatchedemergency US Special Forces to Colombia to offer intelligenceassistance to find and free the missing Americans.
The United States has poured about $2 billion into thefight against Colombia's massive cocaine industry, and hasrecently allowed the South American nation to also use aid totarget leftist rebels and far-right paramilitary gunmen.Washington brands Colombia's outlawed forces 'terrorists',using cocaine-cash to fund a a four-decade-old guerrilla war.