Colombian authorities were scrambling to identify who was behind a brazen car bombing at a police academy in Bogota that has rattled residents and raised tough questions about lingering security threats in the wake of a peace deal with the nation\u2019s largest rebel group.<\/p>\n
Overnight, the death toll from the Thursday morning bombing more than doubled to 21, making it the deadliest attack in Colombia in years. It proved especially unsettling because the target, the General Santander school in Bogota, is one of the most protected installations in the capital.<\/p>\n
President Ivan Duque, visiting the academy in the aftermath, was careful not to attribute blame to any armed group even while condemning what he called a \u201cmiserable\u201d terrorist act that recalled some of bloodiest chapters of Colombia\u2019s recent past.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe terrorists are looking to intimidate us as a society and attack the state,\u201d Duque said in a televised address in which he declared three days of mourning. \u201cColombia will demonstrate that it is a strong state, united and won\u2019t break in the face of the dementia of these aggressions.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the help of security cameras, authorities were quick to identify the suspected bomber as a 56-year-old man with no criminal record named Jose Aldemar Rojas. He died in the attack.Little is known about Rojas. Records show he bought the car last year and had it inspected six months ago in the eastern city of Arauca, near the border with Venezuela.<\/p>\n
The same volatile area is a stronghold of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, the country\u2019s last remaining rebel group following a 2016 accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that saw some 7,000 rebels disarm.<\/p>\n
The ELN has been stepping up its attacks on police targets and oil infrastructure amid a standoff with the conservative Duque government over stalled peace talks. A year ago, the group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a police station in the coastal city of Barranquilla that left five officers dead.<\/p>\n
Duque has demanded the ELN cease all attacks and kidnappings as a condition for restarting the talks and has condemned Venezuela and Cuba for allegedly providing a safe haven for rebel leaders even as their troops continue to sow violence in Colombia.<\/p>\n
For decades, residents of Bogota lived in fear of being caught in a bombing by leftist rebels or Pablo Escobar\u2019s Medellin drug cartel.<\/p>\n
But as Colombia\u2019s conflict has wound down, attacks have fallen to historically low levels and residents in turn have lowered their guard, something that magnified the shock at Thursday\u2019s carnage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the maximum impact any terrorist act could have,\u201d said Jorge Restrepo, director of the Conflict Analysis Resource Center.<\/p>\n
Restrepo said he expects the attack to be a defining moment for Duque, who was elected last year on a law and order platform highly critical of his predecessor\u2019s peacemaking but since taking office has taken a more moderate stance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colombian authorities were scrambling to identify who was behind a brazen car bombing at a police academy in Bogota that has rattled residents and raised tough questions about lingering security threats in the wake of a peace deal with the nation\u2019s largest rebel group. Overnight, the death toll from the Thursday morning bombing more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53040,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53038\/revisions\/53040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}