BOGOTA, Colombia — Police discovered a roadside bomb outside a town hours before a U.S. senator and U.S. ambassador were to visit, a Colombian police commander said today.
Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson were the likely targets, Police Col. Jose Miguel Villar said.
But a State Department official in Washington said Patterson told department officials by telephone that she did not see it as an assassination attempt. Another State Department official, also asking for anonymity, added that it is not unusual for such devices to be found in Barrancabermeja, considering the town's reputation for violence.
Hours before the two U.S. officials flew into Barrancabermeja on Thursday, police discovered two shrapnel-wrapped land mines alongside the road leading from the airport to the town and arrested a suspected rebel, Villar said.
The land mines each carried a 6.6-pound explosive charge, were attached to cables and a detonator and were ready to be set off, Villar said in a phone interview from Barrancabermeja, 155 miles north of Bogota, the capital.
Bernardo Alvarez Duarte, a suspected member of the rebel National Liberation Army, or ELN, was arrested at the site, Villar said.
"If the bomb had gone off, it could have caused immense damage," Villar said. "It would have spread shrapnel over a wide area and could have taken out 10 or 15 people."
Patterson said she had received sketchy reports about the bomb as the delegation departed Barrancabermeja.
Many residents of Barrancabermeja had known the U.S. delegation was going to arrive. But security forces had kept confidential plans to transfer the party from the airport to the town by helicopter. Even if the bombs had exploded, the delegation would not have gone anywhere near them.
Villar said the Americans were probably the target of the bomb, but he could not absolutely confirm it. Alvarez, the arrested man, was being questioned for further information.
Washington supports the Colombian military in its fight against the ELN and a bigger rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Barrancabermeja is the most violent town in Colombia, with almost 500 politically related murders this year alone, according to human rights activists. Right-wing paramilitary squads and rebels have been preying on the townspeople and fighting for control of the region.
Wellstone, a second-term senator and a member of the foreign relations committee, arrived in Colombia on Tuesday night and was departing on Friday. He visited Barrancabermeja to lend support to human rights activists there.