Colombia’s army said two car bombs - not one, as was initially reported - were used in attacks in the conflict-ridden province of Cauca that left two dead and two others wounded.
One of the explosives-laden vehicles detonated in a rural zone of the municipality of Caloto and the second near an aqueduct that supplies that area of southwestern Colombia.
The army attributed both of Tuesday’s attacks to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrilla group.
The guerrillas “abandoned the explosives-filled vehicle, which detonated causing the death of a civilian,” the military’s Apollo Task Force said in a statement, referring to the first car bomb.
Authorities are investigating whether the driver of the vehicle was the person killed in the blast.
The second victim, a soldier, was killed in clashes with the guerrillas immediately after one of the car bombs detonated, the task force said.
Two soldiers also were wounded in those same clashes.
“A greater tragedy that would have affected the civilian population of this area was averted thanks to military checkpoints,” the statement said, adding that the assailants intended to detonate a car bomb in the center of Caloto.
Colombia’s decades-old armed conflict has intensified in recent weeks even as ongoing peace talks between the FARC and the government continue in Havana.
