Colombian Army Prevents Terrorist Attack On Runway Prepared By Revolutionary Group

Colombian armed forces prevented a terrorist attack in the country's northeast, where a dissident revolutionary armed group was preparing to blow up a runway previously used for the shipments of COVID-19 vaccines

MEXICO CITY (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th March, 2021) Colombian armed forces prevented a terrorist attack in the country's northeast, where a dissident revolutionary armed group was preparing to blow up a runway previously used for the shipments of COVID-19 vaccines.

"Troops of the National Army in a military operation neutralized the terrorist action that the members of the Residual Organized Armed Group 33 tried to commit in the Cuatro Esquinas village of the Teorama municipality, where they were going to detonate explosives, at the same place where an aircraft that brought COVID-19 vaccines to this part of the Catatumbo region had landed earlier," the army said in a statement published late on Friday.

The security forces detected two explosive devices, ready for a controlled blast, which could cause significant damage to civilians and soldiers.

The armed group which tried to commit a terrorist act is one of the remaining organized groups in Colombia, which were formed from members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who did not want to participate in the 2016 peace deal, designed to end the decades-long Colombian conflict.

The war began in 1964, the same year the 20,000-strong FARC was founded as a military wing of a local communist party. It was supposed to fight for the creation of a "New Colombia", which was meant to be a society of social justice and equality.

In 2017, the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force communist political party was established as a political successor of the FARC.