Colombia chopper crashes in hunt for death squad

CNN March 7, 1999 Colombia chopper crashes in hunt for death squad

                  BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- A Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter
                  crashed on Sunday in dense fog in northwest Colombia as the army hunted
                  for the mountain stronghold of the country's most-feared right-wing death
                  squad, authorities said.

                  Six of the eight soldiers on board were injured, some of them seriously,
                  when the chopper went down in a mountain range known as the Nudo de
                  Paramillo, an army spokesman said.

                  The area, on the edge of Cordoba and Antioquia provinces, is the
                  powerbase of Carlos Castano, head of a nationwide alliance of illegal
                  paramilitary gangs known as the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia
                  (AUC).

Accidents involving Colombia's fleet of unwieldy Russian Mi-17s and
Vietnam-era, U.S.-made Huey UH-1H helicopters are not uncommon.

                  Sunday's crash was the first public sign that the army was pushing ahead
                  with efforts to track down the country's top paramilitary leaders who have
                  been accused of carrying out gross human rights abuses in their "dirty war"
                  against suspected leftist rebel sympathisers.

Human rights groups have frequently accused the military of backing the
death squads.

                  Army sources said at least two army brigades were involved in operations to
                  hunt down Castano, while another three brigades were trying to encircle
                  territory controlled by another paramilitary chieftain Ramon Isaza, in
                  Colombia's Central Middle Magdalena region.

                  At the end of last year, Marxist rebels stormed Castano's stronghold in the
                  Nudo de Paramillo and initially claimed they had killed the death squad
                  head. Castano, however, managed to slip the rebel net.