A automotive bomb exploded Saturday in southwestern Colombia, the military mentioned, a day after conservative political neophyte Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in as Colombia’s new president.
The military alleged the assault was carried out by two dissident teams of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The teams didn’t settle for the peace settlement that FARC signed a decade in the past with the Colombian authorities.
The explosion occurred at a toll plaza on the Pan-American Freeway, the primary highway within the nation’s southwest. The military mentioned two safety guards suffered minor accidents within the assault. One of many guards instructed authorities that the explosion was attributable to a car that had been deserted by a person who fled on a motorbike.
The affected highway connects the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca, whose capital, Cali, hosted Friday’s swearing-in ceremony for de la Espriella. Throughout his inaugural speech, he outlined his safety coverage and warned unlawful teams that “they’ve two paths: undergo the rule of legislation or confront the safety forces.”
The military on Saturday mentioned on social media that troopers had been securing the world and utilizing skilled canine to seek for different explosive units. Scattered across the toll plaza had been elements of the car, together with the charred chassis.
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The explosion awakened households who stay in homes positioned just a few yards (meters) from the crime scene. Elizabeth Zapata, 57, mentioned she felt the blast wave “carry them off the bed” and the home windows shattered. Her relations, who stay with a number of kids, “arrived with shards of glass embedded of their backs.”
Cauca Gov. Jorge Octavio Guzmán instructed reporters he believes the assaults are supposed to isolate the division so as to preserve management over 1000’s of hectares.
“This isn’t an remoted incident; it’s systematic,” he mentioned.
Minister of Transportation Elsa Noguera condemned the assault and mentioned work was underway to revive visitors within the space.
“Colombia is not going to kneel earlier than violence, nor will it enable the destruction of the infrastructure that connects our areas,” she wrote on social media.
Dozens of prisoners despatched to most safety prisons
Additionally on Saturday, de la Espriella introduced the switch of 117 prisoners linked to the earlier administration’s peace talks to eight maximum-security prisons. The measure, based on the nation’s corrections company, goals to “regain everlasting management of the prisons” and “comprise any capability of felony organizations” to coordinate illicit actions from inside prisons. De la Espriella has rejected the dialogue with armed teams promoted by his predecessor, Gustavo Petro.
With no prior political expertise, the 48-year-old de la Espriella, a lawyer and businessperson, narrowly defeated Iván Cepeda, a progressive senator and Petro ally, in a June runoff election in a polarized political local weather.
His time period begins with a strong opposition led by Petro, who refused to acknowledge his victory and insisted on alleged fraud regardless of the official declaration from the electoral authority and the optimistic evaluation from worldwide observers.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
