Colombia Bombing: 18 Dead, Police Helicopter Destroyed

Before, in the same social network, the President attributed the attack on the police helicopter to the 36th central staff.

None of these armed groups have attributed the authorship of the attacks.

These occur in the midst of repeated questions to Petro’s “total peace”.

Opposition voices link this policy that promised more dialogue and conciliation with groups armed with the deterioration of security in Colombia that, although it does not reach the levels of decades, makes a dent in citizen perception.

According to the police, this afternoon’s attack in Cali, made with bomb cylinders, was aimed at the Marco Fidel Suárez air base, in the north of the city.

Witnesses on the field told the AFP news agency that they heard explosions near the base, that there were many people injured and that several homes were damaged.

Several buildings were evacuated and the Mayor’s Office reported street closures and circulation restrictions.

In the same area, the presence of a van with pump cylinders inside was detected, although it was then ruled out that they were loaded.

Mayor Alejandro Eder offered a reward of up to 400 million pesos (US $ 100,000) “to whom it provides information that allows identifying and capturing those responsible.”

Valle del Cauca, department that has as capital Cali, has been frequent target of attacks in recent months.

On June 10, the responsibility of a wave of explosions and armed attacks in Cali that resulted in seven dead was also attributed to EMC.

Another 12 attacks occurred in the neighboring department of Cauca, dying 8 people.

In this region of the country several dissidents of the FARC, features heirs of paramilitarism and the ELN converge.

All groups that dispute territorial control and maintain an armed struggle between them and against the Colombian State.

Cali is the third most populous city in Colombia, with around 2.2 million inhabitants.

Hours before the explosions in Cali, the police general, Carlos Fernando Triana, had described as “terrorist action” the demolition of the police helicopter in Amalfi, Antioquia, in which 12 agents died.

According to Triana, these actions were “against a personnel component that fulfilled land sprinkler work of illicit crops and against an aircraft of the institution.”

According to the radius W station, the drone attack occurred while the aircraft “was aimed at supporting a group of police officers who advanced manual eradication of illicit crops.”

In Amalfi they also operate dissidents of the FARC and the self -denominated Gaitanista army of Colombia (EGC), better known as the Gulf clan.

The attack on the helicopter and the agents was attributed to the EGC by the Minister of Defense, Pedro Sánchez, while President Petro linked him to dissent from the FARC.

The Petro government, which will end its mandate in August 2026, has maintained peace negotiations with several armed groups, including EGC, dissidents of the FARC and the ELN, although the latter are suspended.

While these conversations happen, experts consulted by BBC Mundo point out that several armed groups have “reinforced in recent times”, especially in territorial control and illicit economies.

Since 2025 began, Colombians observe with concern a deterioration of violence that is manifested with images that many believed surpassed.

In January, a humanitarian crisis broke out in the Catatumbo region, bordering Venezuela, when a military escalation between the ELN and the 33rd front of the FARC dissidents left at least 117 people dead and more than 60,000 displaced.

This episode coincided with several mortal clashes in Cauca, Guaviare, southern Córdoba, Magdalena Medio or Cesar, all scenarios of clashes between armed groups that fight for territorial control.

Months later, on June 7, the presidential candidate and opposition senator Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot in public in Bogotá, dying in the hospital in the early hours of August 11.

His death was the first magnicide in Colombia of the last three decades.

After the attacks on Thursday, which until now does not seem linked, opposed to Petro’s government as the Democratic Center party, founded by former president Álvaro Uribe, hardly questioned the security management of the current president.

“While the country’s security deteriorates in a alarming way, the Petro government concentrates its efforts and the resources of the State to protect the criminals of the FARC and the ELN on the argument of the dialogues of ‘total peace’,” said the party in X.

On a similar line, former president César Gaviria, director of the Liberal Party, said in a letter that “it is evident that the so -called Gustavo Petro’s government’s total peace policy has failed in its purpose of reducing violence.”

Petro defended himself showing a graph of the National Police that indicates that the homicide rate under his government is considerably less than that of governments of decades ago, including Gaviria.

Less than a year for presidential elections, the polarization of Colombian policy revolves around security that progressively restores many citizens.

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