Car bomb explodes in Colombia, killing four

BOGOTA, Colombia -- A car bomb exploded outside the attorney general's offices in Medellin on Thursday, killing four people and recalling the dark days of a drug war that turned the city into one of the world's deadliest places.

Now, leftist rebels carrying their 38-year insurgency into Colombia's cities are suspected in the bloodshed. The blast wounded 32 people.

Attorney General Camilo Osorio, in Bogota when the bomb went off, said the blast may have been rebel retaliation for the mass arrests earlier this week of suspected rebel militias in Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city.

Osorio said the government would continue a crackdown on lawlessness in the South American nation. He headed back to Medellin immediately after getting word of the bombing.

"The criminals and subversives must understand that the state must ... impose order and security, and we'll keep working toward that," Osorio said.

The car, containing 88 pounds of explosives, blew up just before 8 a.m. in a parking garage shared by the attorney general's offices and a small shopping center. The explosion collapsed walls, blew out windows and damaged nearby buildings and cars.

A 3-year-old boy, two employees of the attorney general's office and a cafeteria worker were killed. Red Cross spokeswoman Lina Marcela Campaz said that 32 people were wounded.

Relatives of people who worked in the building rushed to the site when they heard news of the attacks. Two men, identified as brothers of one of those who died, walked through the debris-filled street, their arms around each other and sobbing.

President Alvaro Uribe, who has vowed to crack down on the insurgents, authorized a $172,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the bombers.

Rebels are suspected in a Nov. 22 mortar attack in Bogota on the attorney general's main offices. The mortar rounds exploded on a lawn next to the complex, injuring two people.

Osorio said he had planned to move his Medellin offices, where 700 people work, from its exposed position downtown to a better-protected area along the Medellin River.

Medellin, which sprawls across a high Andean valley and is known as the city of eternal spring, has been recovering from the days when Pablo Escobar's Medellin cocaine cartel waged a terrorist war against the state to avoid extraditions to the United States.

Hundreds of people, including policemen, judges and journalists, died in the war, which ended when Escobar was shot dead by police in 1993.

Since then, Medellin has seen a renaissance. A clean, efficient subway -- the only one in Colombia -- opened in 1995. Art museums and parks have bloomed and the city has become a fashion hub.

But the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, have brought their insurgency to Medellin's doorstep.

In October, urban warfare broke out between more than 1,000 troops and police and rebels entrenched in a poor Medellin neighborhood. This week, troops and police conducted house-to-house raids in several neighborhoods of Medellin and arrested 68 suspected rebels.