By REUTERS

          BOGOTÁ, Colombia -- Government troops searched the jungles of
          a remote region of northern Colombia Tuesday for Marxist rebels
          who hijacked a commercial airliner on Monday, kidnapping all 46 people
          on board and spiriting them down a river in canoes.

          Hundreds of soldiers and police officers, including counterinsurgency
          specialists and commandos, searched in the air and on the ground.

          Otto Gutiérrez, chief spokesman for President Ándres Pastrana,
          appeared to rule out trying to rescue the passengers by force because it
          would risk too many lives. The plane, a Dutch-made Fokker-50
          operated by Avianca, Colombia's largest airline, was seized aloft and
          forced down minutes later in Bolivar province.

          The police blamed a combined force of the National Liberation Army
          and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the hemisphere's
          oldest and largest rebel groups, for the hijacking. Col. Alberto Bravo, a
          regional army commander, said, "Clearly this was carried out by units of
          the Revolutionary Armed Forces and Liberation Army operating in the
          zone."

          The hijacking occurred a week before the Government and guerrilla
          leaders were to restart stalled talks aimed at ending Colombia'scivil war.

          Rebel sources said the seizure of the plane and military reports of a wave
          of attacks around the country overnight might signal the start of a fresh
          offensive aimed at strengthening the guerrillas' hand in the talks.

          The Government has officially avoided blaming guerrillas, apparently
          fearful that the hijacking could become an obstacle to the talks, which
          have been in limbo since the rebels withdrew in January.

          No trace has been found of the guerrillas or their captives, thought to
          include an American, an Italian, at least one Colombian congressman and
          two top executives of the national gas distribution company.

          After the emergency landing on Monday, the rebels bundled their
          hostages into canoes and took them down a river through the jungle
          toward a nearby mountain range, the authorities said. Civil Aviation
          officials initially said it was the first time Colombian guerrillas had
          hijacked a passenger aircraft, but they acknowledged Tuesday that at
          least three other cases had occurred in the last 20 years.

          The M-19 rebel group, now defunct, seized an Avianca Boeing 727 with
          130 passengers on board in 1980 and forced it to fly to Cuba. The group
          hijacked another plane two years later with 70 people aboard and again
          flew to Cuba. In 1992, the Liberation Army hijacked a cargo plane,
          forced it to fly to northeast Colombia and killed three soldiers among the
          13 people on board.

          Hours after the latest hijacking, attacks occurred in southwest and
          northern regions of Colombia.

          More than 25 soldiers were missing after fighting overnight Monday in
          Uraba, in the northwest, army sources said.

          In a separate assault on Monday, rebels destroyed a state-run bank and
          a police station in Samaniego, in southwest Nariño Province, and clashes
          between the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the army were reported in
          neighboring CaucaProvince.
 

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