From Herald Wire Services

             BOGOTA, Colombia -- A leftist rebel attack on a remote Colombian town left
             between 70 and 80 police officers and 10 civilians dead, a Red Cross official said
             Monday after leaving the area with a first wave of injured.

             ``There isn't a single police officer alive in Mitu,'' some 400 miles from here, Teddy
             Thorbaum told Radionet radio.

             Those not killed were abducted by rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
             Colombia (FARC) who staged the Sunday raid on the town, Thorbaum said.

             Mitu's police station was ``completely destroyed'' and the guerrillas kidnapped 40
             to 45 police, he added.

             Authorities have been unable to confirm the reported death toll from the 12-hour
             assault by an estimated 800 leftist guerrillas, who fired homemade missiles from
             modified propane gas cylinders.

             In its last radio contact at 2 p.m. Sunday, the 120-man police garrison reported
             four officers killed and nine wounded. The FARC, Latin America's largest rebel
             group, blew up telecommunications towers and cut Mitu from the world.

             Thorbaum flew a woman and three children -- all seriously injured -- aboard a
             small Red Cross plane from Mitu to Villavicencio, some 330 miles from the town.

             As troops trudged on foot through dense jungle Monday to retake the besieged
             town, military officials worried about the uncertain fate of the town's 14,000
             inhabitants and its police force, Army Gen. Freddy Padilla said.

             ``The only thing we know for certain is that the guerrillas attacked police
             headquarters at dawn Sunday, but from that point on we know nothing and are
             worried that the officers have not communicated'' with the outside, Padilla said.

             ``Several houses were torched'' was all that Padilla would say early Monday about
             the situation in the town.

             ``We don't know if the attack is continuing,'' said the general, who has been
             coordinating military operations from Villavicencio.

             Colombian President Andres Pastrana cut short a two-day official visit to
             Venezuela that was to have run through Tuesday to return to face the crisis.

             While rebels have agreed to talk with Pastrana, who made ending Colombia's
             bloody conflict a priority after being elected in June, they have not pledged to stop
             fighting.

             The 200 troops advancing Monday toward Mitu were dropped by helicopter
             about six miles from the town and were proceeding carefully to avoid possible
             rebel counterattacks, police said.

             ``We know that there are ambushes, and we know they are waiting to confront
             our people,'' police Gen. Luis Ernesto Gilibert said Monday. ``We have no
             knowledge of what happened in the fighting, how many wounded and how many
             dead we have.''

             The FARC attack came on the eve of talks with the government, and experts said
             the raid was an effort to capture police in a bid to strengthen the rebels' negotiating
             posture.

             The FARC, comprising 12,000 armed guerrillas, have called on Pastrana to trade
             452 detained rebels for 245 soldiers and police that the insurgents are holding
             hostage.

             The guerrillas have not commented on the attack, which would be the largest since
             an August offensive in which 143 police and soldiers were killed and 130 taken
             prisoner.
 

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