FARC increasing use of landmines: Army

[Bacchus39]

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/14975-farc-increasing-use-of-landmines-army.html

Thursday, 17 March 2011 15:04 Tom Heyden


The commander of Colombia's Armed Forces says the FARC are increasingly returning to traditional guerrilla tactics like the use of landmines, and warns of the difficulty of removing these devices, EFE reported Thursday.

According to Admiral Edgar Cely, the increased use of more antipersonnel mines is a sign of the weakness of the FARC, which has "gone backwards several years" with their return to traditional "guerrilla warfare."

The military chief said that there are antipersonnel mines "everywhere" in Colombia and "we do not know where they are," labelling this "a very serious problem."

So far this year these mines have taken the lives of 13 soldiers and injured 81, while the figures for 2010 ended with 101 dead military personnel and a further 417 wounded.
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He warned that the "order of these barbarians is to increase the minefields," explaining how the FARC, besides placing the mines in the ground or in trees, now also use "ghost" mines buried out of sight and detonated by remote control.