Rebel attack in Colombia called `brutal'

 From Herald Staff and Wire Reports

 WASHINGTON -- The State Department on Monday justified the use of
 U.S.-provided helicopters to defend Colombian police during a weekend guerrilla
 attack, saying the counter-narcotics aircraft were closest to the battle.

 The helicopters ``are generally permitted to conduct such rescue flights and
 search and rescue missions, in addition to their normal counter-narcotics
 responsibilities, department spokesman Philip Reeker said.

 They were the closest units to the small town of Arboleda over the weekend when
 its police outpost was ``attacked brutally by guerrillas, Reeker said. It was not
 known if U.S. or Colombian pilots flew the craft.

 Reeker's comments came amid a controversy over the use in combat of the six
 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters provided by the State Department to the
 Colombian police last year, ``primarily for anti-narcotics missions.

 A U.S. official in Bogota told The Herald last week that the U.S. rules of
 engagement allow the Black Hawks to be used to defend Colombian security
 forces under attack by guerrillas in drug-producing zones.
 BURGEONING AID

 But critics of the burgeoning U.S. aid to Colombia warned that allowing the aircraft
 to be used for anti-guerrilla operations could help drag Washington into the
 Andean nation's bloody civil war.

 Police used at least one Black Hawk to fly reinforcements to the police station
 under attack in the coffee-growing town of Arboleda, 90 miles northwest of
 Bogota, Colombian officials said.

 Police confirmed at least eight members of the town's 25-man police detachment
 and four civilians were killed but said the toll was likely to increase once patrols
 have searched the nearby hills.

 Officials said the attackers were members of the leftist Revolutionary Armed
 Forces of Colombia (FARC), a 15,000-strong guerrilla force engaged in peace
 talks with Colombian President Andrés Pastrana's government.
 `SENSELESS'

 Reeker called the attack ``irresponsible, brutal and senseless and said it showed
 the rebels' ``lack of interest in moving quickly to negotiate an end to the
 decades-long conflict that has plagued Colombia.

 ``We continue to call upon the FARC and all the combatants in Colombia to
 immediately abandon attacks, particularly in areas where civilians may be killed
 or injured, Reeker said.

 Arboleda residents told reporters that several hundred heavily armed FARC rebels
 who arrived in the town on Saturday had packed two vehicles with dynamite and
 then detonated them near the police station.

 They also lobbed pipe bombs and cooking-gas canisters filled with explosives at
 the police station, all but flattening the building and several homes in the
 neighborhood, the residents said.

 Rebel attacks on isolated police outposts have killed more than 30 policemen
 over the last three weeks, including 13 who died in a July 14 assault on the
 northeastern town of Roncesvalles. Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., complained
 afterward that three police Black Hawks sat idle a 20-minute flight from
 Roncesvalles while the overnight attack ground on.

 Colombian officials said the helicopters could not have helped because their
 police pilots were not fully trained to fly at night.