Military and police forces raided estates of top cocaine chieftains and detained 10,000 people nationwide as they tried to put the squeeze on Colombia's powerful drug underworld, authorities said.
There were no reports, however, of any drug cartel bosses arrested in the crackdown, which follows the assassinations of a leading presidential candidate, a national police colonel and a magistrate.Sen. Luis Carlos Galan, the 46-year-old Liberal Party candidate, was buried Sunday after thousands of people took to the streets in a public display of grief.
Meanwhile, thousands of judges and magistrates who walked off the job last week to protest inadequate security from hitmen hired by drug traffickers have called off the strike to join the fight, a spokesman for the jurists said.
In 298 raids across the country since Galan was slain Friday, police and soldiers detained 9,896 people, seized 330 weapons and 1,023 vehicles and confiscated four tons of cocaine paste, the Defense Ministry said in a communique Sunday.
Among the sites raided were buildings and ranches in and around the city of Medellin that are owned by Pablo Escobar, reputed to be one of the world's biggest cocaine traffickers.
According to the ministry, at one ranch owned by Escobar, military forces detained 52 people and seized 2,000 head of cattle, 100 pigs, 3,000 gallons of gasoline and several cars and trucks.
Properties owned by the family of Jorge Ochoa and by Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, two other top reputed cocaine dealers, also were raided, the ministry said.
Galan was gunned down at a political rally in Soacha, a town 20 miles south of Bogota. His killing capped a wave of drug-related assassinations that included a national police colonel in Medellin and a Bogota magistrate.
Later Friday, President Virgilio Barco declared a state of siege and gave police extraordinary powers to arrest and seize the property of suspected dealers, stiffened penalties and established special protection for the country's judges.
Speaking at Galan's funeral in a packed central cathedral, Barco declared: "We pray to God to give each of us, each Colombian, all the courage and all the fortitude that we need to face the challenge of terrorism.
"Once again, this time moved by sadness, I call for international solidarity to fight this international organization," he said. He called the cocaine underworld "a gigantic and powerful organization such as has never existed in the world" and described Colombia as "its biggest victim."
Galan had survived previous attempts on his life. Police said drug traffickers offered $500,000 for his death.
In a funeral sermon, Roman Catholic Cardinal Mario Revollo Bravo declared, "The country is morally ill," but he vowed: "The nation will not succumb to a handful of criminals."
The drug cartels announced Saturday they would step up violence in a bid to force the government to negotiate with them, although they have never publicly detailed their demands.
In a communique released to radio stations and signed "The Extraditables" - a reference to those drug leaders wanted in the United States - the cartels said "now the fight is with blood."